


The Haunting of Barton Farm

by MothTale



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Bruce Banner Is a Good Bro, Bruce Banner Needs a Hug, Clint Barton Needs a Hug, Deaf Clint Barton, Gen, Ghosts, Gore, Horror, Hurt Clint Barton, Implied Childhood Sexual Abuse, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Injury, Insecure Clint Barton, Protective Clint Barton, Science Bros, Sexist Language, Steve Rogers Is a Good Bro, Torture, Witchcraft
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-02
Updated: 2020-01-26
Packaged: 2020-06-02 23:33:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 26
Words: 60,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19451773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MothTale/pseuds/MothTale
Summary: Strange things have been happening at the Barton residence - the children have been having horrific nightmares, objects are moving on their own and mysterious scratches and bruises keep appearing on their skin.It's only the start of a terrifying ordeal which will push the family to breaking point.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> *cracks knuckles*  
> Let's get this show on the road.

Clint came awake to his wife shaking his shoulder.

The lights were on and she was mouthing something at him and then she was moving, getting out of bed and hurrying toward the door.

Clint scrambled for his hearing aids.

He put them in and then he heard the screaming.

He rolled out of bed and caught up with Laura, hurtling down the corridor to Lila’s room.

Laura slammed her palm on the lightswitch and Clint saw their daughter huddled in the corner, where her bed met the wall, with her covers pulled up to her chin and tears running down her face.

‘Sweetie, what’s wrong?’ Laura said, rushing forward to scoop Lila up into her arms. Clint followed, looking around the room to try and see what was wrong, what might have scared her.

Her voice was thick with tears and Clint couldn’t make out any of it. He sat down on the bed and put his hand on her back. She was trembling.

Lila stabbed her arm at the opposite corner of the room.

‘Duh...Duh.’

Clint still couldn’t understand her, but Laura seemed to manage.

‘What man? There’s nothing there, sweetie. Sweetie, you just had a nightmare.’

‘Nuh, nuh,’ Lila shook her head. She was still crying, still shaking, and all Clint could do was murmur and rub her back.

She gulped and gasped.

‘There was. There was!’ she wailed. ‘’Is face wa-- wa--’ she started sobbing again. This time she twisted and buried her face in Clint’s shirt.

Now he really didn’t have a chance of knowing what she was saying.

_What happened?_ he signed.

_She said she saw a man. In the corner. Something about his face being red...I don’t know._

Clint frowned and looked back down at his daughter.

‘It’s okay, pumpkin. It’s okay now. Deep breaths.’

She was trying, but it must have been one hell of a nightmare. Clint knew terror when he saw it.

She clung to him, her tears and snot starting to soak through his shirt onto his skin. So much of parenting seemed to revolve around fluids, it was unbelievable.

_I think she should sleep with us tonight. She’s too scared to go back to sleep here._

Laura didn’t disagree.

Clint picked Lila up.

‘Come on, Lila-bear, you can sleep in Mommy and Daddy’s bed tonight.’

Clint glanced at the corner again as they walked out, but there was nothing there - no coats or other objects which might have caused Lila to see the shape of a man.

He rocked the small child in his arms, rubbing her back and murmuring to her softly.

She had a big imagination - drew colourful fantasy-scapes at the kitchen table. Clint had listened to her making up elaborate storylines and enacting them with her dolls. Her imagination had just gotten the better of her this time. It was nothing to be worried about.

\--

It was a phase, Clint told himself.

They’d been up almost every night that week with Lila’s nightmares. The only night they weren’t was because they let her sleep with them the whole night.

It was waking Cooper up as well, and more than once he’d poked his head outside his door and asked what was wrong with his little sister.

Each time it was the same.

There was a man in the corner. He was a bad man. His face was red and Lila couldn’t or wouldn’t say more than that.

They’d tried sitting in her room with her until she fell asleep, checking under the bed and in the closet for monsters.

So now they got creative.

Clint put up a dreamcatcher, and told Lila about how it would tangle up any bad dreams so they wouldn’t get to her, and only the good dreams would get through.

Maybe it didn’t convince her, because that night they were up again.

The next day Laura had her shot.

She made Lila a bracelet with brown string and green glass beads. She told her it was a magic bracelet, and that any bad things that tried to get to her when she was sleeping would get sucked into the beads and so Lila would be safe.

And that worked. Except now Lila would come and ask her mom to put new beads on her bracelet, and throw the old ones away because of the bad stuff trapped inside. So Laura would do it - not the throwing away part, because the beads were expensive and it wasn’t like she could just pop down the road and get more - threading on fresh beads from her craft box and giving the bracelet back for bedtime.

It seemed a small price to pay for uninterrupted sleep.


	2. Chapter 2

‘You look like shit, Barton.’

‘Gee, Nat, you say the sweetest things,’ Clint remarked.

‘I mean it,’ Natasha said, looking down at him sitting on the rubble of what had probably been some poor bastard’s house just a few hours earlier.

Clint knew what she meant.

He looked around to make sure none of the other Avengers were around, muting his comm and gesturing to Nat to do the same.

‘It’s been a rough few weeks at home. The kids are both going through this nightmare phase - me and Laura are up most nights. Nightmares aren’t contagious, right?’

Natasha gave him a look and, yeah, he knew it was stupid but he wanted to make sure.

‘Just that Cooper started having them after Lila. We worked out a solution for her and they sorta stopped, but then Cooper was waking us up every night with the same thing. Maybe Lila told him about it or something...’

His shoulders slumped and he realised that if he closed his eyes he could probably fall asleep right here, with broken chunks of concrete sticking into him.

‘I assume drugging them is not an option?’

He knew she was joking but he still shook his head.

‘Come on, up,’ Nat commanded. ‘You can sleep in the jet.’

\--

Clint collapsed onto the narrow cot hidden away in an alcove on the jet. He knew he had a couple of hours before they got back to New York to debrief, and he intended to get as much shut eye as possible in that timeframe.

It had almost been a relief, when the mission had come through, because he knew that somewhere in there he’d be able to sleep uninterrupted.

He’d started sleeping with his hearing aids in. It was uncomfortable but it saved him having to scramble to find them on the bedside table every night. It sucked too because he kind of needed that small break from the noise - he could only really get that at home, he rarely felt comfortable enough elsewhere.

Here, for example.

The team already knew he was deaf, but that didn’t mean he felt okay shoving it in their faces or anything.

He found a comfortable enough position - one that didn’t put too much pressure on any of the half dozen minor injuries he’d picked up during the battle.

He shut his eyes and was out by the count of ten.

\--

When he woke up things were wrong.

The first thing was that he was looking across at the cot he was supposed to be on.

The second was that he was on his side with his back against the wall.

‘The hell’s going on back there? Did someone fall off something?’

It sounded like Stark.

‘Are you letting the robot pilot the jet, Stark? ‘Cus you might be okay with that thing in charge of the tin can you fly around in, but I don’t appreciate it.’

Clint started to pick himself up off the floor, unsure how he’d managed to end up on the other side of the alcove. Sure, it wasn’t that big of a distance, but he had to have built up some momentum to manage it.

‘It’s okay J, ignore the agent - he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. And if you’ve got any complaints about _Natasha’s_ piloting skills, I’m sure she’d love to hear them.’

‘Nat can take criticism, unlike you Stark.’

Clint was still getting a sense of all of his new teammates - so far Stark was the easiest to banter with. You had to pick your moments with Steve, Thor was so oblivious it was hardly any fun - most of the time Clint had enough trouble just working out what he was talking about - and Dr Banner was a very definite no.

‘I can take criticism! If I couldn’t take criticism, wouldn’t I have hit you already for that remark?’

‘I’d like to see you try,’ Clint said.

He frowned at the cot.

It was narrow, but it wasn’t that narrow that he’d just roll off and definitely not with enough force to end up by the wall like he did. The only way he could see it happening was if Nat had banked to one side suddenly, and if she hadn’t then…

Maybe he was just clumsy. Falling off things was kind of a speciality of his.

He glanced to his left and saw Dr Banner sitting on the other side of the jet.

If Clint had to guess he’d say he was puzzling over the exact same thing Clint was. And he looked like he was having trouble solving it.

When he realised Clint was looking at him he just stared back with the same questioning look.

Clint didn’t know if he was supposed to say something or not, so he just shrugged and smiled. Banner’s return smile was awkward, and he kept looking between Clint and the cot.

Clint sat back down.

He made sure he was as far away from the edge as he could be before he tried to go to sleep again.

\---

One of the perks of Avenger’s missions was that they were usually short.

A SHIELD operation could last months, but of all his recent Avenger outings only one had lasted more than a few days. They were hectic, bizarre and there was a hell of a lot more pressure when the potentially world ending threat was right there staring you in the face but he was enjoying himself.

Clint jumped another fence and caught sight of the house at last.

It was getting dark and the lights were on. He’d called Laura before he’d dumped the SHIELD car, so she would be expecting him.

The kids were ready to ambush him before he even managed to get as far as the chicken coop. They came hurtling towards him off the porch like little heat-seeking missiles.  
He scooped them both up, one in each arm, as he struggled to make sense of all their chatter.

There were dark circles under their eyes, but they still had plenty of energy judging by the way they fidgeted.

‘One at a time guys. Your dad can’t hear you if you both talk at once,’ Laura said, smiling in the doorway.

Clint greeted her with a kiss, listening while Lila told him all about the new numbers she’d learned.

He didn’t get a chance to ask about the nightmares until much later, when the kids were in bed and he was cuddled up with Laura.

‘One out of three. We’ve had one quiet night out of the three you’ve been gone,’ she said, rubbing a hand over the plane of his stomach. ‘And that’s only because they came in here and slept with me.’

Clint hummed to show he was listening. He had no idea what to suggest, at what point exactly recurring nightmares became abnormal.

He could only remember waking up his parents once because of a nightmare, and it had been the only time he’d made that mistake.

He couldn’t have been any older than four, and he already knew enough to be wary of his dad, not to do anything to piss him off. But whatever had happened in the nightmare had been so terrifying that he had forgotten and had called out for his mom.

She hadn’t come. Instead he got his father thundering down the hall, shouldering open his bedroom door with enough force it left a dent in the plaster.

It ended up in a hospital visit, and the next time Clint had a nightmare he kept it to himself. He remembered lying there, making up stories in his head about anything and everything, to distract himself from just how full the shadows in his room felt.

Sometimes he almost thought that it would be better to let the monsters go ahead and eat him, because then at least he wouldn’t be scared anymore.

He knew that that was the wrong way to handle it, but it didn’t make finding the right way any easier.

‘Guess we just give it some time?’ he said.

‘I guess,’ Laura sighed.

\--

The next morning Clint got up early.

He stretched and went to get a shower. Laura was asleep when he went into the bathroom, and she was still asleep when he came out. It said enough about how tired she was - they were early risers by habit, and normally she’d be stirring by this time.

He went to get his hearing aids from the bedside table and found only empty space.

He went back into the bathroom to check that he hadn’t put them there because he _knew_ he hadn’t been wearing them when he got into the shower.

Another miss.

_Come on, Barton, this is just embarrassing._

He went to check the bedside table again. He felt around on the shelf underneath and found a novel he’d barely read, a single sock and a pen. No hearing aids - which made sense, because he knew he hadn’t put them there but the place he thought he’d put them was still annoyingly empty.

He checked in the gap between the bedside table and the bed - empty except for an embarrassing amount of dust and fluff - and finally got down on his knees to check under the bed.

It seemed unlikely that they would have fallen off - as objects they weren’t especially given to rolling - but he had to check.

He had to get up to go get his phone to use as a torch because it was dark under there, and finally he was able to see.

‘...the fuck?’ he felt himself mutter.

He reached in and pulled out his hearing aids.

They were the current set he was using, so they weren’t some other pair he had somehow managed to lose down the back of the bed months ago, and they had been sitting way out almost under Laura’s side of the bed.

He noticed movement on the bed and looked up to Laura signing, wanting to know what he was doing on the floor.

He held up the hearing aids.

‘Apparently these can teleport now,’ he said.

They were covered in dust and no way were they going back in his ears until he’d cleaned them.

 _How?_ Laura signed.

Clint shrugged.

\--

‘Are you guys holding on tight?’

‘Yes!’

Clint gave the tyre a light push and both kids squealed and giggled as they swung forward and back.

‘Higher!’ Cooper demanded.

‘Manners,’ Clint reminded.

‘Higher, _please_.’

Clint obliged, sending the swing higher. Lila squealed and shut her eyes, but she was still grinning so it wasn’t too high.

As the swing twisted slightly Clint caught sight of something on Cooper’s leg.

‘Did you hit your leg on something, buddy?’

‘Huh,’ Cooper said. ‘No, I don’t think I did.’

‘Well, you got a bruise or something there.’

Cooper looked down and frowned, like he was seeing the injury for the first time.

‘I don’t remember,’ he said. ‘Please, can you push us some more Daddy?’

‘Alright,’ Clint said. ‘Don’t let go.’

If it wasn’t bothering him, it didn’t seem worth making a fuss about it.

He could have got it any number of ways, and if he couldn’t remember then it probably hadn’t been that big of a deal.

It was gone in a couple of days anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't have any kind of regular update schedule at the moment because I only have parts of the story worked out, so I don't know how long this'll take me to finish. I know where it's heading though~


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm getting back into my old writing habits, so I'm getting quicker with the updates. :)  
> Hopefully no one minds the relatively short chapters. They may get longer as the story goes on.

Clint tried his best to calm down the sobbing child glued to his chest.

Any attempt he made to move resulted in Lila tightening her grip like a boa constrictor and panicking more.

She’d run into their bedroom, screaming and crying, like she was being chased.

Clint couldn’t understand what she was saying, between the snot and the tears and the hyperventilating, but he could understand terror.

Laura sat up and turned on the bedside light.

‘Oh, honey. It’s alright,’ she said.

But the soothing words had little to no effect.

Clint focused and tried to listen to the words coming out of his daughter’s mouth.

‘...gonna hurt...was gonna...was gonna…’

She gasped, sucking down oxygen as she tried harder to talk. The harder she tried the more she sobbed.

‘Is he in there right now?’ Clint asked.

Lila nodded, but then her head snapped up and she started shaking it.

‘Don’t wanna...don’t make me go back...I--’

‘Woah, woah, pumpkin, I’m not going to make you go back to your room if you’re still scared, but I’m gonna go talk to him and I’m gonna tell him to--’

‘Nooo!’ Lila screamed. ‘Don’t go, Daddy!’

‘Hey, calm down, calm down. You don’t think that’ll make him go away?’

‘He’s _bad_ ,’ Lila said, like that explained it all. And it did - Clint could tell she didn’t mean ‘bad’ in a ‘forgot-to-tidy-up-after-Mom-asked-you-to kind of way. She meant ‘bad’ in a way which should have been beyond her understanding. Rips-the-wings-off-of-birds kind of bad. Stays-around-to-watch-them-bleed, kind of bad.

‘Alright, alright,’ Clint said, looking across at Laura and wondering if she had picked up on the same thing.

He wondered what Lila could have seen - if she’d snuck downstairs during a horror movie or something - that had gotten tangled up in her subconscious to create something so wicked that even her dad, who was on a team of superheroes for Christ's sake, couldn’t tell it to go away.

\--

Lila was snuggled in between them when Cooper screamed out from down the hall.

Clint hadn’t really fallen back asleep yet, and he was at doorway as Laura was waking up.

‘Stay with Lila,’ he said. He couldn’t see her being happy to be left alone.

He ran down the hall to Cooper’s room.

The door stuck in the frame for a moment, and he had to shove it hard to get it to open.

He flicked the light on, and Cooper was on his bed with his eyes scrunched shut and kicking his legs against the tangled sheets.

At first Clint thought he was still asleep.

‘Coop, it’s okay. Just wake up, c’mon.’

Cooper shook his head with his eyes still closed. He sobbed and grabbed at Clint when he came close enough.

‘N-No. Make him go away. P-please, Daddy, make him go away.’

‘It’s okay, I’m here. Nothing bad is gonna get to you while I’m here, I promise.’

For the second time that night Clint ended up with a child flattening their damp, snotty face against his chest and hanging on to him like grim death.

He picked Cooper up and brought him into the bedroom with Laura and Lila.

It took the best part of an hour to get both of the kids calm enough to sleep, and even then the way the lay huddled up together was tense and fearful.

‘We need to start looking for a child psychologist. This isn’t normal.’

Clint looked up when Laura spoke.

‘We can’t,’ he said, and the guilt tugged at him.

Doctors were alright, they could manage doctors. Laura and the kids went to one vouched for by Fury, who didn’t know their real identity, and knew not to ask the wrong questions.

But a shrink was another story.

They’d want Lila and Cooper to talk about everything, and Clint had no idea what they would say, the things they wouldn’t know that they were supposed to hide. He couldn’t trust a stranger with that kind of information - if the wrong person came asking Clint couldn’t trust that they’d keep their mouths shut.

‘Well, what do we do then? It’s getting worse.’

‘I don’t know…’ Clint said.

\--

The call came the next day.

The Avengers were needed and Clint didn’t have a choice.

Laura looked like she didn’t want him to go, but she didn’t say anything.

‘I’ll talk to Fury,’ Clint said. ‘He might know someone we can trust who can help.’

It made him feel sick to even consider it, but if it was what his kids needed then it would have to happen.

\--

Clint didn’t want to look, but of course he had to.

‘Guys, I’m down,’ he said, lowering his head back.

‘Status, Hawkeye?’ Steve said. Clint could hear what sounded like him beating the shit out of some of the horde of flying monstrosities they’d been brought in to contain. It was kind of relaxing to listen to - as Captain America made the world a better place one punch at a time.

‘Uh…’

Clint didn’t lift his head back up to look at the steel rod sticking out of his abdomen, pinning him like an insect. One look had been enough.

‘I’m impaled.’

‘Shit...Okay, I can get to him. You still where I left you, Barton?’ Stark said.

‘Pretty much.’

He wasn’t going to be hard to find. Once Stark made it back to the rooftop where he’d deposited Clint at the start of the battle, he only needed to look to the next building and down.

It could have been worse. He could have ended up plummeting the full eight storeys rather than the twenty to thirty foot fall he’d had.

He heard a growl coming from above him.

He’d been holding onto his bow when he fell, but the impact had knocked it out of his hand.

The laboratory-born nightmare mashup which had knocked him off the roof was standing on the ledge looking down at him.

Clint had no idea what the scientist behind it had been thinking. Probably they hadn’t been thinking. Because if they had, then they would have known that trying to create something that ended up looking like it belonged in John Carpenter’s The Thing was only ever going to be a bad idea.

He stretched his fingers out and tried to feel for his bow.

‘Just stay up there, you ugly son of a bitch.’

The thing unsealed its jaws - both of them - and started to crawl down the wall.

Clint fingertips brushed the limb of his bow.

It saw the movement and sprung to leap.

Weirdly enough the metal rod sticking out of his guts hadn’t really bothered him. Until he took the shot.

The creature hit the rubble with a thump, and Clint tried to bite back the scream in his throat.

Apparently shooting a bow while you had multiple inches of rusty metal through you was a bad fucking idea.

It burned and Clint tried to remember the last time he’d had a tetanus shot. He was probably up to date. Probably.

It hadn’t been bleeding that badly before, but now he could feel blood trickling down his side.

‘Barton, talk to me!’ Natasha said.

‘I’m okay,’ he managed.

Stark picked that moment to arrive.

Clint couldn’t see his face past the visor, but he saw him pause when he landed. He hoped Stark wasn’t squeamish, otherwise this was gonna suck for him.

‘Yeah, we’re gonna need medevac on this one. That is...completely through you, isn’t it?’

‘Don’t puke or pass out on me,’ Clint said.

Stark ignored him, and started checking with the others just how close to being done they were with this shitshow. Clint didn’t really fancy being stuck here on his own if Cap needed Stark back out there, but he could probably manage.

‘I can’t move him. He has literally got a bit of rebar going right through him. I could try and cut him free, but I don’t really want to risk it.’

The pain was starting to mellow out a little bit, but it still hurt like a bitch.

He wasn’t going to kid himself that this was going to be a short trip to medical, that they’d stitch him up, give him some pain meds and he’d be home the next day.

‘What the hell happened?’

‘That thing,’ Clint gestured vaguely in the direction of the corpse, ‘hit me. Knocked me down here. I got the fucker though.’

\--

‘Hey, Nat,’ Clint said, once the medics had cut through the bar and put him onto a stretcher. They couldn’t remove the metal yet, in case he started bleeding out, so he was stuck with it for now.

‘Can you keep an eye on my fish? Something tells me I’m gonna be away for a while.’

Natasha nodded, the code familiar.

‘Leave it to me.’


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hospitals at night are creepy...always.  
> Hospitals at night when you're hallucinating are fucking nightmarish.  
> Feels like I should add one of those 'Based on Real Events' things like they have on movie trailers.
> 
> Enjoy~

There were any number of reasons for Clint to dislike SHIELD medical.

He had extensive experience of hospitals and doctors from his early childhood, and it wasn’t a glowing endorsement. Clint didn’t know if they’d ever raised any concerns about the frequency with which he, his brother and his mother came through their doors, but no one had ever turned up asking questions.

Then there were the trust issues.

Coulson had given him his word, back when Clint had first joined, that the medical staff weren’t going to pull some shadowy, secretive sci-fi shit on him while he was unconscious and vulnerable. There would be no surgically implanted trackers, mind control devices or remotely-detonated explosive chips in his brain. And Clint trusted Coulson.

It still didn’t mean he had to trust the medical staff.

There had been one doctor who seemed convinced he had to be a mutant of some kind, and whenever Clint was in his care he would always order a load of bullshit tests - trying to discover the secret behind ‘Hawkeye’. Apparently talent, skill, practice and basic, driving fear weren’t enough of an explanation. Clint finally had to talk to Fury to get him to back off.

Post-Loki he was all too aware of a shift in attitude.

He didn’t think any of them would take it to the point of slipping something into his IV, but people had tried to kill him for a hell of a lot less before. He only really slept when someone he knew was there to keep watch.

And finally, there was the simple fact that it was boring.

The nurses wouldn’t let him have pens anymore, because he kept throwing them into the pockets of passing doctors.

Clint had always thought of himself as being fairly laid-back but all that went out the window when he was confined to a bed with nothing to do. It always reminded him that he was expendable, that his being around depended solely on his skills as a marksman and it was impossible to relax when he felt useless.

This time he had all that, and the fact that he was leaving Laura to deal with their two kids and their night terrors.

Natasha was there to help, but he still felt like a shitty husband and father.

He’d needed surgery, but it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. He’d taken a chunk out of his liver, which would apparently heal on its own - livers were awesome. They couldn’t let him go yet though. He’d been promised a week at most, but he’d be on the bench for a few months after that.

‘If you’ve got other stuff to do, that’s fine. You don’t have to stay here with me,’ Clint said, breaking the silence.

‘Oh, do you want me to leave?’ Steve said, managing to sound totally apologetic without the word ‘sorry’.

Clint shook his head.

‘Nah. Just, if you had better stuff to do…’ He shrugged.

It was kinda surreal having Captain America doing crosswords in his hospital room, and he just wished Coulson was there to enjoy it.

\--

Nights were the worst.

Between the paranoia and the noises and the smells, Clint didn’t sleep. He did all his sleeping during the day when people were there and he knew it was unhealthy but it was only for a little longer. A few more days.

He lay where he could keep an eye on the door, even if he couldn’t lie comfortably on his side quite yet. He’d gotten rid of most of the monitors that had been by his bedside when he’d first woken up from surgery, but he still had an IV line tethering him in place.

Every so often he’d hear the squeak of shoes going past.

At some point during the night there was a flurry of activity and noise, Clint heard groaning and then it was gone as whoever it was was wheeled off to wherever they needed to be.

It sent him back.

At least this time he knew the person out there was alive.

For all his frequent hospital visits as a child, he’d only ever had to stay overnight once. He couldn’t remember a lot of it, because he’d been running the mother of all fevers. He’d also been recently deafened by his father, and didn’t have hearing aids because the miserable drunk didn’t want to pay for them.

Looking back, maybe the trauma of it was just as much to blame for him not remembering.

He remembered one part though - the kid a few beds down from him dying.

It happened in the middle of the night and it was the movement that had woken him up as white clad figures hurried back and forth past his bed in the dim, electric light. He’d had just enough strength to lift his head to try and see what was happening.

The curtains hadn’t been pulled all the way around, and he’d been able to see the huddle of nurses and doctors. Between the quiet and the delirium it was like a nightmare come to life and in Clint’s brain they looked like birds, like a crowd of albino crows just waiting for the kid to snuff it so they could start tearing the meat off his bones.

He must have made some kind of noise, because one of the nurses broke away and started coming towards him. Probably he freaked out, because he remembered being pushed down and something sharp in his arm and he was dropping like a stone. When he woke up, the bed where the other kid had been was empty with fresh sheets already on. Maybe the kid had just been moved to another ward - he’d never been able to ask - but Clint knew what had happened. He’d seen it. Seen the shadow which was probably just a hallucination caused by the infection which had been kicking his ass at that moment in time, but which he continued to think of as Death. He’d seen Death waiting with the other people around that bed.

Footsteps came back down the corridor - just a single pair this time. They dragged and shuffled, and Clint pictured a weary agent, on his way out after seeing a colleague down to medical.

Then they stopped outside Clint’s door.

Clint’s breathing was slow and even. The IV pole would make a decent impromptu weapon, but he’d have to tear the needle out of his arm which would cost him a few seconds. The needle itself could be useful, if he could get it in an eye or the right spot on the neck.

He was ready. But then the footsteps started up again and he saw the shadow passing under his door as whoever it was carried on their slow progression down the hall.

_Go figure._

Clint let go of some of the tension.

_Seriously, a guy stops outside your room and you start planning how to murder him with hospital equipment? Is that normal? No wonder your kids have problems._

\--

Natasha was the one to pick him up when the doctors finally turned him loose.

Stark had offered him a place to crash - like maybe he thought SHIELD kept him and Nat in boxes when they weren’t working. He’d seemed surprised when Clint said he had somewhere to go.

Clint got into the car, aware of the new aches and twinges. The last thing he wanted was to bust some stitches and have to go back.

‘We good?’ he asked, gesturing above their heads.

‘Already checked for bugs. We’re clear.’

Clint relaxed back into the seat.

‘Laura and the kids okay?’

Natasha nodded.

In the back of his mind, Clint often wondered what it meant for Natasha being a part of his kids’ lives.

When he first found out about the Red Room’s ‘graduation’ procedure it didn’t really sink in. When Nat told him about it, he got the sense that she wasn’t so much seeking sympathy, as just acknowledgment. So he’d acknowledged it, that it was a fucked-up thing and that was that. The moment passed, and she never mentioned it again.

Then Laura was pregnant and Natasha was there watching it happen and it hardly occurred to Clint how she must feel. She never let the cracks show - and Clint was kinda distracted and panicking at the time, enough that he might not have noticed anyway if the mask slipped a little bit.

When Clint had asked later if she wanted to be an honorary aunt she’d looked surprised, like she couldn’t understand it - why he’d be offering something like this.

‘They slept right through two nights - apparently that’s unusual.’

There was something off about her voice.

‘Nat, what’s up?’

‘That fear...I don’t understand it.’

She looked at Clint and the expression in her face reminded him of what he had seen years ago when he’d been sent to kill her, the look which had made him reconsider. He’d seen the human behind the codename, behind the years of brutal training and indoctrination.

‘You never had nightmares as a kid?’ Clint asked.

She thought about it for a few moments before shaking her head.

‘No. I didn’t.’

‘You have them now though,’ Clint said.

‘Yes,’ she said, carefully like he was interviewing her.

Clint remembered a conversation they’d had - they’d been drinking and things had gotten sad. Clint had bitched and whined about his past, and Natasha had told him about her nightmares. _I deserve them_ , she’d said. And he understood how she felt, about the need for penance, to balance out the books. You remembered the faces, because you owed them that much and if it hurt then you knew that you weren’t too far gone. There was still something good in you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments and kudos are always appreciated!


	5. Chapter 5

Natasha took his bag into the house for him. He tried to argue but she ignored him.

‘Hi, honey,’ Clint said, hugging Laura close when she came out onto the porch.

The kids followed her and latched onto his legs.

‘Remember what I said,’ Laura told them. ‘You need to be careful with Daddy.’

Cooper and Lila nodded and the earnest, determined looks on their faces had Clint wanting to scoop them up and cuddle them - doctor’s orders be damned.

‘Take care of yourself,’ Natasha said, before she left, and somehow she managed to make it sound both sweet and threatening.

‘I will,’ he said.

\--

‘Can I see it?’ Cooper asked, climbing up onto the couch next to him.

‘You sure about that, buddy? It’s kind of nasty looking.’

Cooper nodded.

Clint lifted up his shirt so Cooper could see the scabbed, stitched-up wound. It was red and messy with scabs, and Clint could already see the scar it would become once the stitches had dissolved. He turned slightly, so the matching wound on his lower back was visible.

Lila came bounding up and pushed in next to her brother.

Clint was ready for disgust, or even tears. Her brow furrowed.

‘What’s those black thingies?’ she asked.

‘Huh?’ Clint looked down. ‘Oh. Those are the stitches the doctor put in to close it up. They’ll disappear in a few weeks.’

Both his kids looked at him in wonder.

‘How--?’

‘But stitches aren’t--’

‘One at a time, kiddos,’ Clint said.

Cooper and Lila looked at each other and Cooper pointed to Lila. Lila smiled, and looked back at Clint.

TV and movies had prepared him for the matter of brother-sister fighting, but Clint hadn’t been prepared for just how well his kids got on with each other. There were sometimes arguments or teasing, but the pair of them had no problem playing together. It was kinda heartwarming, and just a little unnerving.

‘Did the doctor use a needle like when Mommy put Mr Raisin’s arm back on?’

‘No. They use a special kind of needle. It’s kind of hooked, like this,’ he bent his finger to demonstrate.

‘Did it hurt?’ Cooper asked.

‘Not that bit. The doctors made sure I was asleep.’

‘Why’ve you got two?’ Lila said, pointing to the wound on his back.

Clint looked around for Laura, unsure of exactly how graphic was too graphic for a three and five year old, but she was nowhere in sight.

‘Well...I fell off a roof, and I landed on my back and there was this bit of metal sticking up...I hit it. It went in there and came out over here.’

Without being able to use the big words like ‘impalement’ he had to resort to gestures and probably ended up giving them a much more vivid picture.

Both kids looked at him with wide eyes.

_Shit._

Lila immediately jumped up off the couch and headed towards the stairs.

‘Lila, where--?’ Clint started, before being interrupted by Cooper with more questions.

‘Did _that_ hurt?’

‘Yeah. A lot.’

‘Did Captain America come help you?’

Clint tried to restrain the wince. He couldn’t blame the kid for idolising the real superheroes in the team, but it didn’t mean it didn’t sting just a little.

‘Nah. He was busy beating up bad guys.’

His son frowned, and Clint opened his mouth to say that Iron Man had been there, if that was any consolation, but Coop beat him to it.

‘But you were hurt.’

Clint didn’t immediately understand what Cooper meant.

‘He’s s’posed to help people when they’re hurt…’ Cooper mumbled.

The realisation hit him like a bus as he worked out what his kid had really been worried about - his dad, alone and bleeding.

‘Sometimes you can’t go and help people right away, because if you do other people could get hurt too.’

Cooper looked dubious, but he nodded.

There was a soft thump from the direction of the stairs and Clint looked around to see Lila sprawled out at the bottom of the stairs on a bundled of blankets and cushions which was bigger than she was, and with an armful of stuffed toys.

She picked herself up along with the bundle and toddled towards the couch.

‘Lila,’ Laura called, hurrying down the stairs and appearing behind her. ‘Where are you going with those?’

Clint didn’t catch what she said, her voice too muffled by everything she held. Judging by Laura’s face, it was adorable though.

Lila shooed her brother off couch and started laying down cushions at one end.

‘Lie down, Daddy,’ she said, and Clint almost burst into laughter at the adorable, business-like, bossiness of her voice.

He humoured her, getting into a position which didn’t pull too much at his stitches. She proceeded to drape him in blankets, building up a nest around him and finishing up by putting the stuffed toys next to his head. He was trying very, very hard not to smirk, because Lila was the picture of seriousness, treating the arrangement like she was in a war cabinet arranging troops on a map.

It was one of the cutest things Clint had ever seen.

‘Now, don’t move, Daddy. You need lots of rest.’

Laura disguised a bark of laughter as a particularly violent cough.

‘Okay, Doc.’

Lila nodded, sitting on the floor in front of the couch. Clint got an arm free from the blankets and reached down and patted her head.

Cooper joined her, and they bickered over the tv remote. They ended up playing rock-paper-scissors, but Clint didn’t see the result - the sofa was comfortable, the blankets were soft and warm and he had gotten very little sleep over the last few weeks.

He was out before the theme tune even started playing.

\--

When he woke up the floor lamp was on and the curtains were closed.

‘Welcome back to the land of the living,’ Laura said, from somewhere to his left.

‘What time is it?’ he said, trying to untangle himself from the blanket cocoon Lila had made.

‘Nine-thirty. PM.’

‘Why didn’t you wake me up?’ Clint said, managing to get upright. His side was aching and he probably needed some pain relief, but he was pretty sure he could push through it.

Laura smiled at him.

‘Because you need the sleep. I’m not going to ask how much sleep you got at SHIELD, because I know it wasn’t anywhere near enough. I saved some dinner for you, if you’re hungry?’

Clint nodded, finally kicking the blankets free.

‘Kids in bed?’

‘Mmm-hmm. Fingers crossed for another nightmare free night,’ she said, picking up a book from the side table. ‘Plate’s in the fridge. Just reheat it in the microwave for a couple of minutes.’

She gave Clint a look as he passed, one he recognised.

‘So, are you banned from _all_ strenuous activity or…?’

He understood the implication and smirked as he slid the plate of spaghetti in the microwave. But he decided to play it dumb.

‘Pretty much. Anything that might put too much pressure on the stitches. So, no heavy lifting, no serious exercise - I’m not allowed to use a bow again for another month and a half. Can you imagine how rusty I’m gonna be by then?’

He turned his head to get a quick look at Laura’s face. She was peering over the back of the chair, her eyes narrowed as she looked at the cabinets. The frustration was written plain on her face.

Clint remembered the first time he’d come back to this house after a SHIELD mission. There had been no kids back then, no need to hold back and wait. They hadn’t made it to the bedroom, or even the couch. The wall in the hallway had seemed sufficient at the time.

He’d heard that physical attraction only lasted a couple of years, but it had been longer than that and Clint still came home wanting his wife; and she made it clear that she wanted him.

The nightmares the kids had been having were proving hard to work around. The last thing he wanted was for Lila or Cooper to wake up from one bad dream, go looking for comfort and immediately walk into a Freudian nightmare that would scar them for life.

And now, with the kids seemingly getting over the nightmare phase, he’d gone and gotten injured. And by the time the injury healed he’d probably be back out in the field.

_Husband of the year, right here._

‘If you were on top...that’d probably work. If I just lay there, then I wouldn’t be doing anything to mess with the stitches.’

Laura looked at him, seemingly unsurprised by the apparent mind-reading. She raised an eyebrow.

‘Works for me. Am I allowed to tie your hands up?’

‘Sure, if you want.’

The microwave pinged.

Clint wasn’t a big fan of bondage, it was too much like work, but Laura liked it. She’d persuaded him to try a few different things over the years.

She always stopped when he asked her to.

Clint took the plate back into the living room and sat down on the couch to eat. He thought he hid the grimace when he sat down but she spotted it.

‘We’ve got Tylenol if you need it?’

‘No, I’m okay.’

She gave him a look.

‘Seriously. I’m fine. I don’t need it.’

She shrugged, went back to her book, and Clint carried on eating and ignoring the pulsing ache in his side.

They both jumped when they heard the crash - the unmistakable shattering of glass.

It came from the kitchen and Laura, unencumbered by a hot plate of spaghetti, got there first.

‘A glass fell off the counter,’ she said.

‘How--?’ Clint put the plate on the coffee table and stood up.

He couldn’t remember seeing any glasses on the counter when he’d been in there.

‘You just stay there. I’ll clean this up.’

Clint was already on his feet, so he ignored his wife and went to look.

Fragments of glass were spread out over the floor, fanning outwards from an epicentre in the middle of the kitchen floor. Far away from any counter.

‘I hope we haven’t got mice again,’ Laura muttered, bending down to sweep up the remains of the glass.

‘Some mouse,’ Clint said. He doubted an unenhanced rodent of the kind typically found in homes could knocked a glass across a room.

But the alternative…?

Clint glanced at the cabinet where they usually kept the drinking glasses. It was shut, as it had been when he’d left the kitchen.

Maybe the glass hadn’t been on the counter, but on the table. And some force had tipped it off - an earth tremor, maybe a draft or something to do with temperature and air pressure. There were all kinds of weird things in the world - Clint knew that better than most.

So there was no reason for the sight of that shattered glass on the floor to fill him with dread. Dread like he hadn’t felt in years.

When Laura stood up to tip the remnants in the trash Clint wrapped his arms around her and kissed her neck.

He wanted to bury the dread under something else.

Laura turned and smiled, reaching up to touch his face. She kissed him, and Clint forgot about the glass and the memory which had been so close to resurfacing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I seem to have ended up in a rhythm of one spook per chapter - pretty sure that's not gonna cut it once things start hotting up on the haunting front.


	6. Chapter 6

Recuperation sucked.

The pain had improved, but the forced inactivity was so much worse. It was especially annoying as the wound healed, and he began to feel like he _could_ do things but knew that if he tried he might end up on the bench for even longer.

The one upside was being with his kids, but he was sort of limited in the kind of games he could play with them. He couldn’t lift them up and spin them around, couldn’t chase after them or let them climb on him pretending to be a giant set upon by giant-hunters.

He sent more than one whiny text message to Natasha, which she replied to - threatening to come to the farm herself if he tried to do anything before he was cleared to.  
He was still up one night in four with the kids - Lila’s nightmares seemed to be getting better, but Cooper was a different matter.

Clint had found him napping in his closet during the day, the dark circles under his eyes equally telling that he wasn’t sleeping right. Clint had started to wonder if the kid was having nightmares _every_ night, but just wasn’t waking him or Laura up over it.

The thought hurt.

When he had talked to Fury, his boss had shared Clint’s security concerns when it came to finding a child psychologist to try and deal with the problem.

He hadn’t said no, but Clint knew he wasn’t thrilled with the idea. Not least because it potentially meant having to organise a hit on some poor bastard once they’d done their job - if they couldn’t be trusted.

Clint didn’t want that on his conscience, but he also didn’t want Cooper to end up suffering long-term effects from the lack of sleep.

Clint and Laura did some research and decided to try and tackle the issues on their own - mostly trying to get Cooper to talk about it, to draw it, so he could try and understand it and maybe get some control of the dream.

Cooper didn’t have his sister’s artistic streak, so his attempt at drawing the nightmare man was less than clear. The outline was black crayon, and the face was scribbled over in red. The eyebrows pointed downwards in sharp angry lines with a scowling mouth. Cooper looked at the drawing and added some wiggly lines around the figures.

‘What’re those?’ Clint asked, sitting at the kitchen table next to him.

‘He smells bad,’ Cooper said. His nose wrinkled as if he were remembering the smell. ‘Like...like burning. And like...like...I don’t know.’

‘Alright, buddy,’ Clint said, putting a hand on his head.

Cooper looked down at the drawing he had done and pushed the paper away.

‘Will talking about him make him go away?’

‘Well, that’s the theory…’ Clint said.

Cooper leaned against him.

‘Mostly he just stands there, in the corner of my room.’

Clint didn’t move. They’d been trying for weeks to get either of them to open up about it, to maybe try and work out where the fear was coming from.

‘In your room?’

Cooper nodded.

‘He says stuff. Mean stuff.’

‘What kind of stuff?’

Cooper made a noise, a mumbling sort of whimper.

‘Can’t remember,’ he said, and Clint knew he was lying but pushing was only going to make him clam up.

‘Okay,’ Clint said.

‘He tried to pull me out of bed. But I screamed, and you came, and he went away.’

Clint froze.

Three nights ago he’d gone running to Cooper’s room, and the kid was on the floor screaming. It had taken hours to calm him down, and he’d gone to sleep with a deathgrip on Clint’s t-shirt, still clinging to him. Like he was scared someone was gonna come and try to pull him away.

‘I’m finished, Daddy,’ Cooper said, laying the crayons down and pushing the drawing away. He looked up at Clint, waiting for permission, he realised, to leave the table.

‘Crayons away first, Coop, then you can go,’ Clint said.

\--

The drawing went into a folder, along with the notes Laura was making. She was keeping track of times and dates, trying to measure how much sleep the kids were getting. She made food diaries and activity diaries, trying to find a common factor, a possible cause. Whenever Clint saw her she had a notebook in her hand.

Lila’s drawing was more detailed than Cooper.

There was the figure of a man - again, outlined in black crayon - but with a recognisable shirt and pants. The red ran in lines down his face, and Clint watched Lila concentrating with her tongue poking out between her teeth. She added red to the shirt, and to the pants. The face still had the downward slanting eyebrows - the mouth was a line of clenched teeth. She scribbled around it in grey, drawing cloud-like shapes. Behind it she drew flames; red wrapped in orange, wrapped in yellow.

‘What’s that all about?’ Clint said.

He hadn’t wanted to interrupt - to break her concentration - but it was the only clear difference between Lila and Cooper’s drawing.

‘I hear ‘crackle crackle’ when he talks sometimes,’ Lila said, tipping her head to one side as she finished colouring in another flame.

‘...Does he smell like anything?’

Lila paused.

Her nose wrinkled and she nodded.

‘Like...Like smoky...bad.’

It didn’t have to mean anything.

Cooper and Lila had had plenty of time to talk to one another and maybe influence each other’s nightmares. There didn’t need to be any other reason to it than that.

But Clint couldn’t help but feel uneasy.

‘You said he talks. What sort of things does he say?’

‘Bad things,’ Lila said. She stopped colouring and looked down at the picture. ‘But it’s okay. Because I know he’s a liar.’

She grabbed a new sheet of paper and immediately started doing something in purple.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Double update today! I was editing this to post when I decided that the previous chapter worked better on its own.

Clint blamed _Bewitched_ for the conversation.

Laura had a thing for old sitcoms - it was like some sort of comfort food for her. Clint found them somewhat grating - at least at first. The wholesome family-orientated sappiness of it had annoyed him, but after a few marathon viewing sessions with Laura he’d come to appreciate the familiar storylines, the neat structure of every episode, the overwhelming _reassurance_ it offered.

It had become part of the evening routine. A couple of episodes of something practically doused in optimism, and then upstairs to bed.

The kids seemed to be enjoying it so far. There was still some foot-dragging when the television turned off, but things seemed to be a little better.

Then, during a scene with Tabitha and Endora, Lila asked, ‘Do we have a grandma too?’

When neither Laura nor Clint answered she looked up at each of them, smiling and waiting. Unaware of the panic she was causing.

‘Sure,’ Laura said at last. ‘Everyone does.’

Lila’s eyes widened with delight and Clint got a sinking feeling.

‘Where is she? Do I get to meet her?’

Clint looked away. He’d known the ‘awkward questions’ would come up at some point, but he’d hoped that point would be in the distant future.

‘Maybe when you’re older,’ Laura said.

And Lila opened her mouth, and the pout was there, and oh god this was going to be a thing and she wasn’t going to shut up about it.

Clint could feel Cooper swivelling round next to him, to listen to what his mom had to say.

‘Do you want to see a picture of her?’ Laura said.

Lila nodded, smiling again.

‘Come on then, we’ve got some photo albums around somewhere.’

 _Thank you_ , Clint signed as she went past.

Cooper fidgeted next to him.

‘You wanna go too?’ Clint asked, and Cooper nodded. ‘Off you go then.’

The kid scampered off after his mother and sister, following them upstairs to where Laura kept her photo albums.

Clint stayed to turn off the television and put the DVD back in its case. He didn’t really want to listen while Laura pointed out the grandmother and grandfather, the great-aunts, great-uncles and all the various cousins they would probably never meet - who didn’t even know they existed.

Because of him.

He slid the DVD case back into its proper place and turned to head upstairs.

Something hit the floor.

He turned back around and there was the case. Face down on the floor.

_Huh._

He picked the DVD back up and slid it back into place. He held his finger on the spine for a moment. When he let go he took a couple of steps back and stared at the shelf.

He turned around again, shoulders tensed and just waiting to hear the clatter against the wood floor.

Nothing.

Clint waited.

Once was weird, but the kind of weird which could be shrugged off. But if it happened again…

...well then it was time to get the salt, and the sage and the holy water.

Nothing happened for a solid minute.

Clint let his shoulders relax, rubbing a hand over his eyes.

_What the fuck am I doing?_

It wasn’t even nine o’clock but sleep seemed like a real good idea right about now.

\--

The door to the bedroom was partially shut, and Clint could hear Laura talking to the kids.

‘And this here...let me think...she’ll be your second-cousin-once-removed.’

‘And this lady?’

‘That’s your great-aunt Katie.’

He heard pages flipping.

‘I wanna see the ones with Daddy!’ Lila said.

‘Well, we’ve only got a few. Lemme find them…Oh, here.’

‘Why’s your hair like that?’

‘Because I was young and stupid and made bad style decisions.’

‘Is that Daddy?’

He heard a giggle.

‘Yeah, he wouldn’t stay still so I could take the picture.’

‘Where are all the other people? Like you had.’

Clint’s insides twisted. He considered pulling out his hearing aids so he wouldn’t have to listen to whatever Laura said next, whatever explanation she tried to give.

‘Daddy’s people...well, they weren’t very kind to him.’

‘Why--?’

‘Yeah, why weren’t they--?’

‘Your grandpa on that side...well, he wasn’t a very nice man. He wasn’t kind to his wife or his children.’

Clint winced, hoping the kids didn’t notice the plural hidden in there. He really didn’t want to have to explain to the kids about their Uncle Barney - he had no desire to relive any of that particular trauma.

He pressed his foot down, finding one of the creaky floorboards to announce his presence.

When he pushed open the door they were all sat on the bed with the photo album open in front of them. Clint made a face when he saw the photos she’d been showing them.

He remembered the day - remembered Laura menacing him with an instant camera. She’d practically put him in a headlock, trying to get him to keep still.

‘Scooch over, guys,’ Clint said, gesturing Cooper and Lila aside so he could fit on the bed.

He saw Lila’s mouth opening, ready to form a question he probably didn’t want to answer.

‘Has your mom shown you her baby photos?’ he asked, moving to flip the pages back. ‘Here. That is your mom aged about eighteen months.’

He pointed out an overexposed photograph of a wispy-haired, chubby-legged infant in bloomers sitting in a sandbox with a bucket on their head.

The kids’ jaws dropped.

‘That’s Mommy?’ Lila said, looking up at Laura for confirmation.

‘Yeah. That is me,’ Laura said, shooting Clint a low-level glare.

He shrugged back at her. Sure, it was an act of shameless self-preservation, but he hadn’t had much of a choice. The kids were way too young to hear about his dad smacking him, his brother and his mom around.

Clint found another picture of Laura, age seven unwrapping a Christmas present next to an artificial tree. She was smiling at the camera, with a prominent gap where one of her front teeth were meant to be and wearing a bright, pink pair of Barbie pajamas.

The here-and-now Laura was giving him a very dangerous look. The kind of look which told him that this wouldn’t be forgotten easily and that sometime, somewhere, he was going to pay for it.

Clint gave her a lopsided smirk and she rolled her eyes.

‘I think it’s time for bed,’ she said, taking the photo album and closing it.

The kids went quiet, but they did as they were told.

Clint couldn’t help but feel bad - they looked like they were being herded off to be shot or something.

‘Just shout, and we’ll be there,’ he reminded them.

It didn’t feel like enough.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Couple of minor warnings on this one: mentions of cancer and some pretty heavy-duty swearing.

‘I want to take him to the doctor,’ Laura said.

It was late evening, the kids were inside watching television and Clint and Laura were out on the porch. Where they wouldn’t be overheard.

Clint nodded.

He’d been on the verge of suggesting it himself.

‘Laura, it probably isn’t--’

‘I know, but those bruises...There was another one on his arm this morning. We were with him all day, if he’d have bumped into something or hurt himself we would have seen.’

‘I know. I know.’

He didn’t want to consider it - what the bruises could mean. But if the possibility of leukaemia or some other disease could be ruled out, then the sooner the better.

‘I’ll call Fury tonight. He’ll get Cooper an appointment. Maybe even before the end of the week.’

He reached for Laura’s hand and squeezed it.

‘It’ll be okay,’ he said.

She looked up at him and smiled. There were tears in the corners of her eyes.

‘It’ll be okay,’ he repeated.

\--

‘I get to go in the jet?’ Cooper said, looking up at Clint in amazement.

‘That’s right, buddy. If you ask Auntie Nat nicely she might even let you sit up front with her.’

Cooper’s eyes widened.

‘I wanna go too!’ said Lila, stamping her foot on the porch.

Laura tried to calm her down but the tantrum was picking up momentum.

‘It’s not fair!’

Natasha came down the ramp and crouched in front of Lila.

‘When I get back with your mom and brother, I’ll take you for a ride. Just you and me. But you have to behave for your dad first. Got it?’

Lila nodded, sniffling and red-faced.

Fury had moved quicker than Clint had anticipated. He’d called his boss at eight-thirty the previous evening, and by midnight Fury had phoned him back saying that an appointment had been made at a SHIELD facility, where all the necessary tests could be performed. He was sending Natasha to pick Cooper and Laura up, and everything would be done as soon as possible.

‘I’ll look after them,’ Natasha promised, while Laura buckled Cooper into a seat on the jet.

When the jet took off, Clint sat down on the porch steps with Lila to watch. He held onto her tightly until the noise subsided, and the jet was just a speck in the distance.

\--

It was simple enough to keep Lila occupied - it was just tiring.

She flitted between activities like a honey bee in a wildflower meadow. One minute Clint was helping her set up her toys in a mock battle, the next they were outside practicing gymnastics.

How the hell does Laura manage it?

\--

Laura called just before dinner.

‘How’s he doing?’ Clint asked.

‘Well, he’s pretty upset about all the needles so far. He’s been really brave though…And he’s getting jelly and ice cream for dessert, so he’s happy about that. Dr Khan said they should be sending us home around midday tomorrow.’

‘Did the doctor say when we’ll get the results?’

‘Tomorrow. They’re putting a rush on it, apparently. So we’ll know...tomorrow.’

\--

They finished up the evening eating ice-cream on the couch and watching Lila’s pick of Disney movies.

‘Daddy,’ she asked, ‘is Cooper sick?’

‘That’s what we’re trying to find out, pumpkin.’

She nodded and went back to watching the movie.

‘Is Mommy with him?’ she asked, five minutes later.

‘Yeah, she is.’

‘Good,’ Lila said.

Clint reached out and ruffled her hair.

By the time the movie finished she was barely keeping her eyes open.

Clint carried her upstairs.

When he tried to set her down in the bathroom so she could brush her teeth she wouldn’t let go.

‘Lila, you’re not a koala. C’mon let go, sweetie.’

‘Uh-uh,’ she said.

‘Lila…’ Clint sighed. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘...don’t wanna go to sleep. Don’t want...don’t want him to get mad.’

‘Why would he be mad?’ Clint asked.

‘’Cus Cooper’s not here,’ Lila said. She looked up at him. ‘Mommy’s gonna stay with Cooper right, Daddy? She’s not gonna leave him all alone?’

‘Yes, sweetie. Your mom’s staying with Cooper.’

Lila loosened her grip a little bit, but she was still very much attached.

‘Can I stay with you?’ Lila said. The tone was unlike her. When Lila begged - when she wanted to stay up another hour, when she wanted a new toy, when she wanted someone to play with her - her voice wobbled all over the place, vowels dragged out, pitch rising and rising. The way she spoke now, there was none of that. Clint had heard people plead like that before, sometimes to him, but he’d never heard his daughter sound like that. So quiet and desperate.

‘You are with me,’ Clint said, trying to smile.

‘But…’

Lila didn’t finish. Her grip loosened again - giving up with no wailing or foot stamping.

‘You wanna sleep next to me tonight?’ Clint asked.

Lila nodded so fast she almost headbutted him on the chin.

‘Alright,’ Clint said. ‘You gotta brush your teeth and get changed first.’

He finally set her down and she bounded up to the sink.

\--

She tried to get changed so fast she got her head stuck in an armhole and Clint had to go help her.

He tried to brush it off, but there was something about the room that set his teeth on edge. It was the same sort of feeling he might get in a really sketchy bar, sitting with a bunch of strangers at his back.

As Lila’s head popped up, looking like she’d stuck it outside during a hurricane, he looked back over his shoulder.

He was looking at the corner. The same one Lila had pointed at that first night, when this had all started.

Clint liked to think he had good instincts. They’d kept him alive more than once, although a lot of times it was just dumb luck. Especially since his hearing went to shit. If Clint walked in somewhere, and every nerve and fibre seemed to be screaming ‘danger’ then he just walked back out. The one time he’d really ignored it was the last time he’d seen his brother.

On the bad vibes scale, the room was registering at about a five. Considering that a ten was somewhere in the region of ‘that-guy-over-there-has-a-big-fucking-knife-and-looks-like-he’s-just-imagining-what-your-insides-taste-like’, and he was home, in familiar territory - with next to no possibility of an actual threat being present - it was weird to say the least.

‘C’mon, sweetie,’ Clint said, when Lila was finished.

As soon as he left the room the feeling was gone.

\--

Lila ran and jumped onto the bed, bouncing up and down.

Now that she was out of her room, knew that she would not be sleeping there tonight, she seemed bright and cheerful again.

She gleefully starfished out in the middle of the bed.

‘Hey, leave room for me,’ Clint said, smiling.

Lila adjusted her starfish position by about an inch.

Clint rolled his eyes. He reached and grabbed her ankles, pulling her over to the other side while she giggled.

If she got too excited she’d never fall asleep and she’d be a fidgety nightmare for the rest of the night, and then she’d be a grouchy one for the next day.

He hadn’t thought to grab one of her storybooks, and there was no way he was going back in that room.

‘I ever tell you about the circus…?’

Lila shook her head. She sat up, and Clint could practically see the questions bubbling up.

‘You lie down and get ready to go to sleep and I’ll tell you about it.’

He turned off the main light, leaving one of the bedside lights.

When he got back into bed Lila was under the covers, hugging her stuffed rabbit and looking at him expectantly.

There was lots he couldn’t tell her of course.

He couldn’t tell her why he was there, about his brother, the beatings, all the bad and cruel things over the years.

He couldn’t even tell her some of the campfire stories - the old carnie legends he’d picked up. Somehow, he couldn’t see the story about the train crash and the cannibals going down so well.

So he told her about some of the people.

It probably wasn’t the truth, since most of what he knew was what the people themselves had told him.

He told her about the sword-swallowers, the acrobats, the lion tamer.

Lila listened to it all with wide eyes, not even asking a single question.

\--

When Clint woke up it was pitch black.

For the barest fraction of a second he panicked, and then he remembered about the light in the hall.

Living in the middle of nowhere, there was no light pollution - on a cloudy night you could almost imagine you’d gone blind the darkness was so complete.

Which was why the Bartons always left at least one light on; usually the one in the hall which ran between the bedrooms.

But he’d forgotten about it tonight.

He worked to orientate himself in the dark, feeling for the edge of the bed, so he could find the bedside table and from there the lightswitch.

There was still the matter of whatever had woken him up.

Then he heard the whispering.

‘Go away! I don’t like you - I don’t have to listen to you.’

He heard Lila’s voice, but it was distant - wasn’t coming from where she was supposed to be.

It sounded, now that his brain had properly caught up with his ears, like it was coming from the end of the bed.

‘You’re mean!’

There was a pause.

‘No. I’m not going. I don’t have to listen to you, you’re not my Daddy.’

Lila’s voice was getting louder, as she got more upset.

Clint flicked on the light.

Lila was kneeling on the end of the bed, facing towards the doorway.

When the light came on, she turned and dove towards Clint, burrowing under the covers like a prairie dog.

‘Lila…’ Clint said, still looking at the empty doorway.

He was not creeped out.

He was a grown man, who did not _get_ creeped out.

But…

The light from the bedside lamp didn’t go much further than the doorway, hardly made a dent in the deep darkness of the hall.

Shadows played tricks on your eyes, if you stared at them long enough. They seemed to move, flowing like water - like it was all part of some living thing, breathing and shifting around you.

Whatever it was Clint thought he was seeing, he knew it wasn’t real. And when he blinked, he lost track and the dark became just dark again.

He lifted the covers and looked down at Lila.

‘Care to fill me in?’

Lila shook her head. She was shaking, trembling away next to him. Clint rubbed her back and the shaking started to slow down.

Whatever had just happened wasn’t a nightmare. Wasn’t night terrors or sleepwalking.

Which left Clint with two options, neither of which he really wanted to think about.

‘Lila, I need you to talk to me,’ Clint said, still rubbing her back.

‘H-he wanted me to g-go with him. But I didn’t want to! He--he called me bad words!’

‘What kind of bad words?’

Lila looked at him like he was trying to trick her. After all, they wouldn’t be bad words if people were allowed to go around saying them all the time.

‘You’ve got my permission to say it, just this once. It’s alright.’

Lila still hesitated.

Clint was about to tell her it was fine if she didn’t want to when she finally spoke.

‘He said ‘you little bitch.’ An’ he said ‘hur--whore’ and I was a,’ she screwed up her face in concentration, as she tried to remember, ‘a ‘stubborn cunt’, an’ dumb, an’ useless…’

And Clint knew she hadn’t heard all those words from him or Laura, or even from the television. She couldn’t read yet so she hadn’t got them from a book - Cooper could read, but Clint doubted he’d be able to manage the type of books which had ‘bitch’ and ‘cunt’ in them.

‘I-I know they’re bad ‘cus…’cus he said them like they were bad.’

She started to cry, and all Clint could do was hug her and tell her she wasn’t any of those things. Telling her that she was strong and brave and smart, that he loved her, that her mother loved her, and not a goddamn thing that creature had said was true.

He didn’t stop until after she was asleep.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter jumps around a lot, but we're heading into what I guess would be the second act if this was a film.

Laura was in the kitchen when the phone rang - Clint barely heard it manage one ring before she picked it up.

The next thing he heard was the scrape of a chair being pulled out and then Laura sighing ‘Oh, thank fuck.’

It was too late to try to cover Cooper’s ears - at least his sister was out of earshot, cashing in on Auntie Nat’s promise, although from the sound of what had happened last night it wouldn’t have been anything she hadn’t heard before.

‘Mommy swore.’

‘Yes, she did. Gimme a second, Coop,’ Clint said, getting up and carefully stepping around the lego strewn over the floor. He’d rather get shot than stand on one of those bastards again.

Laura was leaning on the kitchen table, the phone pressed to her ear.

‘Thank you. Just...thank you so much,’ she was saying. She looked up when Clint walked in.

_All clear_ , she signed, an exhausted smile on her face.

Clint tried to feel relieved. He _was_ relieved, obviously, but if it wasn’t an illness causing Cooper’s bruises then Clint wasn’t left with a whole lot of options.

He waited for Laura to put the phone down before he spoke.

‘Honey, I think our house is haunted…’

\--

She took it better than he’d expected.

He’d been steeling himself for the usual horror movie spouse routine - that he was tired/stressed/imagining things. He didn’t think she’d do that to him, but then again you never knew exactly what another person was gonna do.

‘Haunted?’ she said, after a few moments. Then, ‘Well I guess that would explain a few things. So, what do we do about it?’

\--

‘Daddy, what are you doing?’

‘Ghostproofing, sweetie.’

Clint ran his fingertips over the tape, smoothing it down.

Maybe it wasn’t up to Madame Sabine’s standards - crayons on construction paper as opposed to ink on authentic, aged parchment - but she’d told him herself that all that shit was just for show. It was more about intent than anything else.

He’d had to do some research - the circus fortune teller hadn’t been the one standing over him, hitting him until he Got. It. Right. She’d been nice. Sure, the tea she made tasted awful, but he’d never been able to bring himself to tell her that. She’d taught him a few things - the things she actually believed when the wig and the make-up came off. She’d also been one of the only ones who’d bothered trying to sign - most everyone else just shouted louder. Even Barney after a while.

When he’d found a symbol which looked familiar, he’d made a note of it. He could vaguely remember her drawing it out on his hand, telling him it was to protect against evil.  
At the time he’d kinda thought maybe she’d been smoking too much weed, but then about a month later he’d gone and survived a beating which arguably should have killed him, or at the very least crippled him for life. So maybe there was something in it after all.

He’d just finished taping up that same symbol onto every wall of his daughter’s bedroom.

‘You’re sure just normal salt is fine?’ Laura asked, holding the container of table salt out to him.

‘Well, not sure exactly…’ Clint said, pouring out a thin line over the windowsills, and over the floor in front of the door.

Laura folded her arms.

‘Lila, make sure you don’t step on this, alright?’

‘And that’ll keep him out?’ Lila said, eyes widening as she looked at him like he’d just handed her a puppy he’d saved from a burning house.

The real answer was that Clint didn’t know.

He shot things for a living. He did not deal with ghosts - or whatever the hell this thing was. The supernatural was not exactly in his purview - unless it was likely to be seen off by an exploding arrowhead.

‘Yeah, it will.’

\--

He hardly got any sleep the first night after his ghost proofing attempt.

He was just waiting for the bed to start shaking, for disembodied howls, for blood to start running down the walls…

Or just for the kids to wake up from another nightmare. For nothing to have changed.

‘If the Avengers don’t work out,’ Laura said, upon waking up the next morning after an undisturbed night’s rest, ‘looks like you’ve got a potential career in ghostbusting.’

She kissed him - the salt on the floor apparently completely forgiven.

\--

He got called into work a few weeks later. Weeks during which no one in the Barton house had had a single nightmare.

Clint reported in and let medical check him out, hardly even bothering to complain. They gave him a clean bill of health, and Fury flung him immediately into a solo assignment in Alaska. The medical assessment he’d been subjected to seemed unnecessary - the only risk he incurred was death from boredom.

After that he was back on with the Avengers.

‘Barton, it’s good to see you back,’ said Steve.

Clint was almost a little unnerved by how most of the team seemed genuinely happy to see him.

Clint had had colleagues before. Ones that despised him. Ones that tolerated him. And a few who had grudgingly come to like him, usually over a period of years.

He could still count the number of times he had worked with these people on his hands, and already they were treating him like they cared about him.

He got a backslap from Thor - warm and well-meaning even if it did almost put his back out. Clint struggled to imagine another agent doing that; the brotherly backslapping part - he was sure there were plenty who wouldn’t have minded shattering a few of his vertebrae.

Apparently saving the world together sped things up.

‘So, what does SHIELD do with injured agents? Do they shackle you to a desk and make you do paperwork? Or do they stick you in a tank until you’re fixed?’ Stark said.

‘Didn’t you know? We’ve got our own private island in the Caribbean - it’s like an all expenses paid vacation. I thought you’d hacked us already?’

The only one who hung back was Dr Banner, but that wasn’t unusual. The guy didn’t exactly make it easy to bond, and if Clint was in his position he’d probably act the same way.

\--

The next two days were non-stop.

Clint lost track of the number of timezones he crossed through. He broke one bow, dropped another into a river and the final one ended up wedged between the jaws of an honest-to-god dinosaur which had been trying to eat him.

Said dinosaur was now sprawled out in the street - Clint couldn’t take credit for that part, the Hulk had jumped off a building and bellyflopped straight onto the poor creature’s neck.

Clint had only just avoided being crushed by the both of them.

Natasha found him sprawled in the street and apparently drawing out all of those sigils had had some sort of magical splashback effect, because he was somehow in one piece with only superficial injuries.

Clint lifted his head up off the road.

‘They take down the big guy yet?’ he asked. If SHIELD needed him to tranquilise the Hulk then they’d better have brought him another back-up bow.

‘Dr Banner’s back with us already. Are you hurt?’

‘I’m fine,’ he said, sitting up with a groan which probably gave the exact opposite impression. The muscles in his side, where the scar tissue would have formed, ached a bit more than he was used to, but that was to be expected. He probably could have done with another few weeks without a mission like this.

\--

As far as traditions went, the post-mission feast was a pretty awesome one. Stark always paid for it, no questions asked, although that did mean he also got to choose the restaurant. Clint wasn’t complaining though - it was as close to free food as he’d ever gotten. He’d learned at a pretty young age that nothing was free, even if the person offering promised otherwise.

Stark hadn’t gone and bought the restaurant this time, just hired it for the evening so they’d have privacy.

Clint was sat between Dr Banner and Natasha. Natasha was talking to Steve, and Stark was talking to Thor. Clint turned to try and start some sort of conversation with Dr Banner, to maybe pass on his thanks to the Other Guy for stepping in and not letting him end up as dino chow. The doctor was asleep, chin resting on his chest.

So Clint did what any reasonable adult would do in his situation.

He checked his phone.

He saw a notification for a voicemail and tapped it.

There was Laura’s name, and a time. 2.38 AM.

Laura didn’t send voicemails - she texted, usually with an obscene amount of emojis. And certainly not at three in the morning.

Clint muttered an excuse and left the table.

When he got outside he looked to make sure no one had followed him out; then he put the phone to his ear to listen to the message.

‘--ick up! Damn it.’

He heard Laura.

She sounded...wrong. Hysterical was the word which came to mind, and that wasn’t Laura.

‘Clint? I-I’m sorry, I know...I know I shouldn’t be trying to call. You’re working, b-but I...I need you to come home. Please. Something...Something _happened_ and I...I don’t want to be here on my own. Please.’

Immediately Clint tried to call her back.

It rang once, then twice and Clint was right about to run back into the restaurant, grab Natasha and tell her they needed to go now, when she picked up.

‘Clint?’

‘Laura, are you okay? Are the kids?’

‘We’re okay. Just...when are you coming home?’

She didn’t sound as bad as she had in the voicemail, but Clint could still hear the fear.

‘What happened?’

‘I...I...saw it. Just...please, Clint. If you can...come home.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My Clint Barton backstory knowledge is limited to the Matt Fraction comics, so I've taken some liberties in that department.  
> Also, sorry not sorry for the slight cliffhanger. I stop my chapters wherever it feels right, and this just happened to be the place. *shrugs*


	10. Chapter 10

Clint went back into the restaurant and tapped Natasha on the shoulder.

‘Got something here. We need to get moving.’

He looked at the others, shrugged and said ‘SHIELD’.

Steve was frowning at them, like he wanted to say something but didn’t think it was his place.

Stark had no such filter.

‘You just finished here, and they want to send you somewhere else already? I hope you guys get paid overtime for this. Just because they’ve got an acronym doesn’t mean they get to do whatever they want.’

Clint pretended he hadn’t heard.

‘We’ll need the jet. You guys can find your own way home, right?’

He didn’t wait for an answer.

\--

Natasha didn’t ask any questions until they were in the air.

‘So, where are we going?’

‘Home,’ Clint answered. Because it was as much a home to Natasha as to the rest of his family. Both he and Laura had made it clear that Natasha had a room in their house whenever she needed it.

He saw the first sign of nervousness, almost imperceptible but it was there. Then he saw her slipping on her cold, deadly assassin mask - the Natasha Romanoff who could kill you as soon as look at you, _without_ looking even.

‘They’re fine,’ he added. ‘Just...this is kinda hard to explain…’

‘Let me pilot, Clint,’ Natasha said. ‘You’re worried, I can see it. So let me fly so you can tell me what the hell is going on.’

‘I _can_ fly and be worried at the same time,’ Clint said.

‘I know you can,’ said Natasha, always reasonable. ‘But you don’t have to right now. Let me take over.’

Clint sighed and did what she said.

Once they swapped places he started to talk.

‘I think there’s a ghost in my house…’

He glanced at her face, and other than a slight - very slight - eyebrow raise, there was no reaction.

‘It started with the nightmares...and it got worse. The kids, they’ve both been seeing the same guy - I got them to draw it and everything was the same. He’s been talking to them and...the stuff he says, there’s no way they already knew those words. And...And things have been moving on their own and then there’s the bruises all over Coop. Fuck…’

He leaned forward and put his head in his hands.

‘I don’t know what the hell it wants, or why it’s there. I tried to...do something about it, and it seemed like it was working but now…

‘Laura called me. She said she saw it - _him_ \- whatever this fucking thing is, and it’s scared her. Bad.’

He waited for Natasha to speak, resisting the urge to add ‘I know it all sounds crazy…’ with every second that passed by.

‘What did you do to try and get rid of it?’

He looked up and her expression hadn’t changed - it was business as usual, gets-shit-done-and-looks-badass-doing-it Romanoff.

‘Some stuff I learned off a gypsy in Carson’s.’

That got another slight eyebrow raise.

‘She wasn’t actually a gypsy of course - I think she was from Michigan - but she seemed like she knew what she was doing. The other carnies used to trade her stuff for charms and spells, so she was about as legit as they come.

‘Anyway, she taught me some of the basics - a couple of spells, a few things about herbs. I drew up one of her seals on the walls of the kids’ rooms, plus some salt.’

‘Just their rooms? Not the rest of the house?’

_Shit…_

Clint groaned.

‘I’m an idiot…’ he said.

Natasha didn’t disagree with him.

\--

Every light in the house was on.

Clint was met on the porch by Laura, and Cooper and Lila, all in their pajamas, all looking relieved to see him.

Lila ran to him and immediately wanted to be picked up. She wrapped her arms around his neck and buried her face in his shoulder. His tac gear couldn’t have been all that comfortable to snuggle against, but she did her damnedest anyway.

‘I’m so glad you’re back,’ Laura whispered. She looked even happier when she saw Natasha.

Clint got the feeling that if more people turned up, she would have been happier still. There was safety in numbers.

‘Should we go inside…?’ Clint said, when no one made a move.

Laura’s shoulders sank slightly, but she nodded.

They went inside and sat at the kitchen table.

The kids stayed close, rather than going upstairs to bed - which was where they should have been at this time of night.

Clint didn’t comment on it, knowing that there was a good reason.

‘Why don’t you go watch tv?’ Laura said. ‘I need to talk to Daddy and Auntie Nat now. It’s okay, I’ll be right here.’

They didn’t look like they wanted to go, but they obeyed their mother, and soon the sound of cartoons drifted into the kitchen. Laura had her chair turned so she could see them.

She inhaled a shaky breath.

‘We all slept in Cooper’s room last night. Didn’t want to be alone.’ She drew in another breath. ‘God…’

Clint reached out and put his hand over hers.

‘Laura, babe, what happened?’

She looked up at him.

‘Last night...about ten I guess, I heard a noise. Thought maybe one of the kids was up, or a raccoon had got in o-or something...I came downstairs and I...He was _sitting_ in the armchair. And he looked at me and his face...b-but worse than that was this look. Just _hate_. Mad. Mad as hell. There was this feeling but it...it wasn’t mine. Like ‘What did I do wrong this time?’. Like it was my fault he was mad.’

‘What did he look like?’ Clint asked, and he felt like an asshole for it when just talking about it was almost driving her to tears, but he needed to know.

She took another deep breath. Gathering herself, and there was the Laura he knew. Strong, determined. Taking it all in her stride.

‘White. Mid fifties I’d guess, but it was hard to tell. Green shirt, brown pants. Brown hair, kinda reddish maybe.’

Another deep breath.

‘He had blood all over his face, down his front. It was all sliced up with, like, glass or something. His skin was kinda grey looking. And there was this smell…You remember what the kids said? About the smell?’

Clint nodded.

‘It was thick, oily. It smelled like an engine fire...like gasoline and metal. And something dead.’

She shuddered.

‘When I was about seven a stray dog crawled under our house to die. We didn’t notice until the smell started spreading around inside. My mother made me go under the house to get it. It smelled like that.’

Clint didn’t say anything, he couldn’t think of anything. Instead he squeezed Laura’s hand. She smiled at him.

‘He said ‘Gimme one good reason why I shouldn’t knock every one of your whore-teeth out of your whore-mouth.’ I turned around and I ran. I heard him come after me, and I didn’t look back. L-Lila’s room was the first I came to and I...I went in there. When I looked back, there was nothing there but...I know what I saw. He...He was solid, like you and me.’

‘Laura, I’m so sorry. This...this is my fault,’ Clint said.

It was common _fucking_ sense. If he drove the ghost out of one place, of course it would find another. He had to push it out of the whole house, not just individual rooms.

‘No, honey, it’s not your fault.’

‘Do you have a name?’ Natasha said. Then, when both Clint and Laura gave her blank looks, ‘Names are powerful. If you’ve got a name, then you know what you’re dealing, you know where to look. You get a spirit’s name, then you have power over them.’

She shrugged, like it was common knowledge. Clint was dying to know where she’d picked up that little piece of information - he thought Russia had done away with superstition when they went communist. But maybe it wasn’t just superstition, after all they had their codenames to keep their real names safe - they hung around with people who worked under all sorts of pseudonyms. Because their names were powerful and, in the wrong hands, they could hurt them very badly.

‘No...The kids never mentioned a name,’ Laura said.

‘Then you should find out,’ she said.

‘And how the hell do we do that?’ Clint said. ‘Before this house there was nothing here. He’s not Native American, so that rules out the ‘old Indian burial ground’ line of inquiry. There aren’t any gravestones on the property that I’ve seen and the ghost sounds like a miserable son of a bitch, so I doubt he’s gonna tell us if we ask him. So, how exactly are we supposed to find out it’s fucking name?’ He lowered his voice at the end, mindful of his kids in the other room.

Natasha was unfazed by the outburst.

‘It was just one suggestion. What are the seals you put up?’

There was a pen and a notepad on the table.

‘I’ll show you,’ Clint said, reaching for the pen.

It flew off the table, hitting the wall and ricocheting into the sink.

At the end of the table an empty chair scraped across the floor.

_Fuck. Fuck. Fuck._

‘Mommy!’

The kids had heard the noise, or maybe felt the change in atmosphere, and were scared. Clint saw them peering over the couch into the kitchen.

The lights flickered.

‘You said Cooper’s room was safe?’ Clint said, looking at Laura.

She nodded.

‘Take the kids up there.’

One of the cupboards flew open, almost catching Laura on the back of the head as she ran out of the room, and a glass tumbler flew out and shattered against the opposite wall.  
 _Distraction_ , Clint thought. _Enough for Laura to get the kids to safety._

‘Hey! You got something to say, say it to me. You go after kids, defenceless women…’

Hopefully Laura and Natasha would forgive him for that last remark, and realise that he was playing a role. Everything the entity had done spoke of a misogynistic, bad-tempered man - his father’s kind of man.

‘...you’re a coward. You think you’re tough? Come and prove it.’

He’d changed his stance automatically when things had started moving, ready to fight even though he doubted he could land a punch on this thing.

Natasha, next to him, had done the same.

‘You’re not welcome here, and you need to leave.’

In the next instant it was right up in his face.

He couldn’t see anything, but he could feel hot breath hitting his face. It came in short, sharp, angry bursts and the smell of it…

Alcohol coupled with bad breath.

Clint knew that smell, from all the times his dad had cornered him and shouted into his face.

The rotten, dead scent Laura had mentioned was there underneath. And, stinging his eyes and nose as he breathed in, the choking fumes of an engine fire.

Clint didn’t flinch, he didn’t step back.

‘Leave my family alone. Get out of my house. Or I’ll make you.’

The rhythm of the breath hitting his face changed.

Laughing.

The thing was laughing at him.

‘You don’t believe me, that’s fine. We’ll see. But if you want to hurt anyone in this house, you hurt me--’

Clint didn’t get to finish.

The backhander - and Clint had been on the receiving end of enough to know what one felt like - knocked him to the ground.

He felt a crunch on the side of his head, tasted blood in his mouth.

Natasha called his name and it was muffled.

He lay on the floor, waiting. Because this all felt familiar. This was the bit where whoever was beating him kicked him in the ribs a couple of times, before they decided if they were gonna do more or not.

Natasha touched his shoulder.

He wanted to tell her to get out of the way, before the next blow came, but his thoughts felt jumbled.

_Concussion. Awesome._

He blinked.

The smell, so oppressive only moments ago, was gone - leaving behind only a faint nasal memory.

‘Clint. Sit up,’ Natasha said, touching his shoulder again.

Her voice sounded weird - like he wasn’t hearing it in both ears.

Clint pushed himself up on his forearms, pushing back a wave of nausea. Something warm dripped down the side of his face.

He went to touch it, and Natasha grabbed his wrist before he could.

The pain, which until now had been a fairly flat, radiating kind of thing, was gaining definition. He could feel his ear at the epicentre of the throbbing, and he could feel his hearing aid. In pieces.

The ghost had aimed a solid hit at the side of his head, and had shattered his hearing aid.

It hardly seemed fair.

It could hit him, but he couldn’t hit back.

Natasha urged him up off the floor and into one of the kitchen chairs. She already knew where the first aid kit was, grabbing it from it’s cupboard and laying it on the table.  
She didn’t warn Clint that what she was about to do would hurt. He knew that already. It didn’t stop him from cursing while Natasha picked out all the splinters of plastic which had gotten embedded in his skin.

She also didn’t berate him for _telling_ the thing to hit him. That went without saying as well.

He also hoped she wasn’t going to tell Laura.

‘There,’ Natasha said, putting the contents of the first aid kit away.

It was annoying, having to turn his head to one side so he could hear her properly.

‘Really, you should go to a hospital…’ Natasha said.

‘I’m fine,’ Clint muttered.

They both knew he was lying.

‘Go back to New York,’ Clint said. ‘We need to return the jet and I need someone to cover my ass with the higher-ups.’

‘I’m staying the night. To make sure you don’t end up in a coma.’

‘Fine.’ He knew better than to try and argue. ‘Nat, can you grab me that pen? The one the son of a bitch tossed into the sink.’

Something told him standing up would be a bad idea, possibly one which would end up with him vomiting over his shoes.

Clint pulled over the notepad and started copying out the symbol he’d put up in his children’s bedrooms. He added some runes for good measure, a ‘Y’ shaped one he remembered having something to do with protection. If he’d known how to spell ‘Fuck Off’ in runes, he’d have written that down too.

This time there was no rattling of objects, no explosions of violence. Probably the thing was resting - recharging its ectoplasm or whatever they had to do. Which meant Clint had time.

‘There’s tape in the drawer there. Can you stick these up for me? One by every window and door, thanks.’

He got her to cover the entire downstairs of the house, and as much of the upstairs as he could manage before the notepad ran out of pages.

It kinda looked like he’d gone mad - if Fury were to walk in he’d probably have Clint committed for his own good.

When he no longer felt like he was gonna puke, he stood up.

The last thing he did before leaving the kitchen was grab a container of salt.

He waved Natasha off, telling her to head on upstairs. And then he drew a line of salt across the archway into the kitchen. He put another at the base of the stairs. And across every single threshold.

He wasn’t kidding himself that he’d got rid of it, managed to turn it out of the house through sheer stubborn stupidity, but if he could restrict it’s movements then that was something at least.

Laura met him in the upstairs hallway.

‘What are you--? Is that blood? What the hell happened down there?’

‘It looks worse than it is,’ Clint said.

Laura looked unconvinced.

‘It got mad. It hit me.’ He shrugged. In the grand scale of injuries he’d endured, it hardly even registered. Maybe a two. Two and a half at best.

She sighed.

‘What are we supposed to do? Do we call a priest?’

Clint laughed - he was tired and, though he wouldn’t admit it, he was scared. And the thought of a balding man with a bible and SHIELD’s emblem stitched on his vestments was just too ridiculous.

He got a hold of himself before Laura, also tired and scared, got pissed at him. The last thing they needed to do was fight.

‘Babe, I’ll fix it.’

_Somehow._


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bit of a shorter chapter here (and another of those darn cliffhangers, sorrynotsorry).

It was amazing the kind of things you could get used to.

For example, the Barton family was getting used to stepping over lines of salt on the floor, which Clint was getting used to re-drawing every couple of days.

It had become a sort of Cold War.

Each day Clint would go around the house, checking and replacing the seals. Left alone, the paper started to blacken and an oily substance would begin to smudge the writing. Clint didn’t feel like leaving them to find out what would happen when the symbols faded completely, hence the daily patrols.

He also got used to the scratches.

It seemed to be about the only thing the ghost could do now.

There would be an instant of burning pain, and then the lines would appear on his skin. He tried to keep it hidden, under long sleeves and layers.

He was the only one it happened to, and that was fine by him.

\--

The kids wouldn’t play outside anymore.

They said that the man would stand in the woods and call to them, threatening them.

So they stayed inside where it was safe.

\--

Clint was never safe.

The scratches appeared on his skin in every room of the house.

\---

‘Sir, I don’t think you understand. I _can’t_.’

There was a long pause on the other end of the line. It wasn’t as bad as one of Fury’s long, hard stares, but it was close.

‘Explain, Agent Barton.’

‘I...It’s kinda complicated.’

‘I have time.’

Clint dropped the phone.

His hand shook as thick, red scratches appeared on his forearm. Blood welled up from the middle one.

‘Son of a bitch,’ Clint hissed.

He picked the phone back up.

‘Not you, sir. It’s...um…’

‘Barton, what the hell is going on?’

Clint told him.

Or at least he tried to.

Because at that moment the smell was back and it was all around him. He felt the air around him being displaced as _something_ moved into it.

When he felt fingers wrap around his neck, he hung up. He cut Fury off mid-shout, but somehow that didn’t feel like a big deal right now.

There was no wrist for him to grab, no pressure points he could exploit to make the grip on his neck loosen.

He could feel every finger, could feel where the bruises from the fingertips were going to be.

It felt bigger than a normal human hand. Like when he was a kid, and his dad would grab him round the throat, lift him up and slam him against the wall while his mom just watched.

‘So, are you actually going to choke me out, or are you just proving a point?’ Clint said, when a few seconds went by with nothing happening.

Clint had read somewhere that talking to them was bad, that it made them stronger, but then he had read pretty much the complete opposite somewhere else. Clint was starting to think that no one, in the field of the paranormal, really had much of a clue what they were talking about.

He felt the fingers move, pressing down like they were testing - trying to see just how much force they could exert. And then they were gone.

Clint put his head down on the kitchen table and sighed.

\--

Laura, running a hand under his shirt as they lay next to each other in bed, finally found some of the scratches.

She sat up, and before he could protest she was wrestling his top off.

The colder weather meant he’d been able to get away with wearing long sleeves to bed.

Even in the low light Clint could see the heartbroken expression on Laura’s face.

‘Clint...what the hell is this? And if you say ‘nothing’ then I swear to god I’ll--’

‘It’s fine,’ he said.

‘Fine?’ Laura repeated. Clint could hear all the tiredness and fear from the last few months crammed into her voice as she tried not to shout. ‘This is not fucking fine, Clint. This is a long way from fine. This...I mean...how long? How long has it been doing this? I thought it was...that it was, I don’t know, _dormant_ or something. Clint.’

‘It’s...It’s just a few scratches. I can handle it.’

He managed to get his shirt back on and sat up next to her, but she kept on staring at the spot where he’d been - where the scratches had been down his back.

They’d been bad ones. Deep, all three drawing blood and in a damn awkward spot he couldn’t reach in order to treat. He’d just worn a dark-coloured shirt and avoided leaning on anything he might leave bloodstains on.

‘I don’t want you to handle it if it means this. Clint, why don’t we leave? Nick could find us somewhere else, or we could--’

‘What if it’s attached to us, not the house? Moving wouldn’t change anything.’

She sighed, understanding.

The farmhouse was well-hidden; it had taken months for Fury to organise, lots of hard work. Back then, Fury had an incentive - he wanted Clint Barton working for SHIELD, and a safe place for Laura had been part of the deal. But now Clint already worked for SHIELD, and he was in it up to his neck.

Moving the family would be difficult, time-consuming and dangerous - and at the end it might not even solve the problem.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

\--

It was never a good idea to ignore texts from Natasha. Especially not when she knew where you lived.

Once she started threatening physical violence, Clint gave in and called her.

‘Barton, what the fuck are you doing?'

‘I ask myself that a lot.’

The joke sounded wrong, forced, and even without the benefit of being face to face Clint knew Natasha would understand that any claim he made about being hale, hearty and in control was about eighty to ninety percent bullshit.

‘Fury called me into his office the other day. He’s worried about you.’

‘Fury doesn’t worry. He schemes.’

And that had already put Clint on edge. He’d been expecting Natasha to say pissed or even, and this joke never got old, _furious_. Having Fury worry about him did not feel good - not least because things that worried Fury sometimes ended up with bullets in the back of their heads and buried under parking lots.

‘Well he’s worried now.’

‘Did you tell him?’ Clint asked. And he was wincing just imagining that conversation. Clint had only ever used the word ‘ghost’ in Fury’s presence to refer to enemy operatives who were proving tough to catch, never the sheet-wearing, chain-jangling variety.

‘Yes. I had to assure him that you hadn’t gone rogue.’

Clint sighed.

‘I can’t...I can’t leave my family right now, Nat. It...I guess it listened to what I said but...I don’t wanna make it mad. If I leave then it might hurt Laura or the kids instead.’  
He realised the mistake he’d made only after the words were out of his big, stupid mouth. Natasha had been there in the kitchen, had seen it knock him to the ground. She already knew the damage it could do.

But surely that meant she would understand why he couldn’t leave.

‘How bad is it? And don’t try to lie to me.’

‘Scratches. A few bruises.’

There was a pause while Natasha considered his words - probably consulting with her internal Barton bullshit detector. Clint resisted the urge to try and downplay it all further, knowing he’d just be digging himself in deeper. But he also didn’t tell her about the hand on his throat.

‘Clint, you can’t fix this on your own.’

‘And what am I supposed to do instead? No one is supposed to know about this place, and if I start bringing in priests and mediums and paranormal investigators then I might as well just hand every bad guy I meet a picture of Laura with our address on the back.’

And with that said, he was panicking, sinking down the wall to sit in the corner of the bedroom. His back to the wall, able to see all the entry points.

He bit down on his forearm.

Hard enough to bruise.

He remembered it helping before.

Natasha was calling his name.

‘I just want him to leave. I want him to go away,’ Clint murmured.

He remembered how it felt to be trapped like this, to be scared like this, to be powerless. And when it had ended it had been through no action of his own; just a whiskey-soaked asshole, a truck going too fast and a tree.

\--

The next time Natasha called it was with a warning.

Apparently Fury’s patience had run out.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things are about to get a little crowded...

‘No,’ was the only thing Clint could get out of his mouth.

‘This isn’t up for debate, Barton.’

‘You can’t just--It’s my _home_.’

He knew he was whining, but it was that or shouting and even though it was late the kids might still be awake in their rooms.

Oh, this was gonna be a fun one to explain. He was just glad Laura hadn’t come to check on what he was doing out on the back porch.

‘I understand that, but I can’t afford to have one of my best agents self-destructing while I sit by and do nothing. You have a team, Barton - unless you’d rather I send a couple of SHIELD agents to deal with the problem?’

‘No, sir.’

He hung up.

There was an urge to throw the phone as far as he could across the grass, to go get his bow and shoot until he calmed down. But it was late, and dark. And the kids said that thing was out there, waiting.

He heard the backdoor open as Laura stepped out onto the porch.

‘You alright?’

Clint made a sound - it meant ‘no’.

Laura came and sat down next to him.

‘Is Nick putting pressure on you to come in?’ she asked.

Clint shook his head.

‘He’s...sending Nat here with Stark and Captain Rogers.’

‘Shit, guess I better get some more groceries if we’ve got three extra mouths to feed,’ was the only thing she said.

Then she took a closer look at his face.

‘Honey, it’ll be fine,’ she said, touching his arm. ‘You trust them with--’

He pulled his arm away.

‘With _my_ life. Not yours. Not the kids’.’

He hadn’t meant to shout, but the anger at Fury, at the situation, was still there simmering.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘Can you just...just leave me alone for a bit, babe? Please?’

‘Okay,’ she said. Her voice sounded small, and he felt sick and disgusted with himself, because none of it was her fault.

It was all him.

\--

‘What time’s Auntie Nat getting here?’

‘Is Captain America _really_ coming to our house?’

The kids were excited.

Clint couldn’t blame them. As far as they were concerned, Auntie Nat and Uncle Nick had always been there - they’d never met a real stranger before. And these weren’t even bad strangers, the ones they knew not to talk to - these were Daddy’s ‘friends’. And they were superheroes. There wasn’t a single bad angle from the kids’ point of view.

‘How long now?’ Lila asked, for the third time that hour.

‘About as long as the last time you asked,’ Clint said, putting the pillows back onto the guest bed.

Laura was out getting supplies, while Clint made up the guest bedrooms - the kids were being no help at all.

‘But it’s been ages,’ Lila protested.

‘Well, jets only fly so fast.’

‘But they’re jets. They’re s’posed to be really, really fast,’ said Cooper.

‘Are Captain America and Iron Man coming to get rid of the bad man?’ Lila asked.

‘I don’t--Ow!’

Blood dripped onto the freshly made bed - the shock of red all the brighter on the clean, white duvet.

‘Damn it.’

‘Daddy…’

‘It’s alright, Cooper. I’m okay. Can you--can you grab me the first aid kit from Mommy and Daddy’s room? It’s on the closet floor - it’s the green box with the cross on it.’

Cooper nodded and darted off.

The duvet cover was already ruined, so Clint grabbed the corner of it to press over the wounds.

Lila’s face was white.

‘Sweetie, it’s okay,’ Clint said.

‘Is it ‘cus I called him a bad man?’ she said, her eyes watering.

‘No, no, no, Lila, it’s not your fault.’

Damn. He couldn’t exactly hug her while he was bleeding everywhere, and verbal comfort only went so far.

‘Lila, Lila look at me. It’s not your fault. He’s an asshole, and that’s what assholes do - they hurt people, and they can pretend like they have a reason but really there’s no reason. Just them.’

The minor cussing had the desired effect, shocking Lila out of the oncoming tears. She frowned, as if trying to work out if her ears were playing tricks on her or not, or if Daddy really had said a bad word. Twice. In the same sentence.

‘Come ‘ere,’ Clint said, gesturing to the side of him that wasn’t currently dripping blood, and gave her a one-armed hug. She buried her face in his leg, squeezing with all the strength her tiny body could muster.

When Cooper came back with the first aid kit and Clint did his best to clean up the mess he’d left.

\--

‘When Auntie Nat comes I want you guys to go to your rooms--Just for a little while,’ he added, heading off the loud chorus of protests. If two kids counted as a chorus - Clint believed they did.

‘I need to talk to Captain America and Iron Man first, okay, and then I promise you can come say hello.’

‘Promise?’ Cooper said.

‘Promise.’

The kids seemed satisfied, running off to play.

‘And promise me you’re not gonna punch either of them. You know I believe in you and everything, but you’re not gonna come out too good in a fistfight against Captain America,’ Laura said, coming up behind him. She wrapped her arms around him - possibly so he couldn’t escape.

‘Why do you think I’m gonna do that?’

Probably for the same reason Clint knew she was rolling her eyes right now, without looking at her. Because she knew him.

And Cap and Stark, they didn’t.

That was the problem.

‘They might be able to help,’ Laura said.

Clint snorted. ‘Yeah, how?’

Laura sighed.

Clint wished he hadn’t said it - but he struggled to see what good they were gonna be. It wasn’t a machine, Stark couldn’t work his tech-wizardry on it. And maybe if it had been a Nazi zombie menacing their home, then Steve would’ve been able to do something to help. But it wasn’t, and Clint failed to see how he could.

‘You could always leave,’ Clint said.

‘Clint…’

‘No, I mean it. You could start fresh somewhere else, just you and the kids - Fury’d be able to help set you up somewhere nice. You wouldn’t have to worry about money or anything, I’d make sure--’

‘Clint, stop.’

It was quiet, but it was firm.

‘Just making sure you know your options,’ Clint said.

She mumbled something against his back, but he couldn’t make it out.

\--

The kids were the ones who first spotted the jet.

They wanted to go outside on the porch to watch it land, but Clint reminded them of their promise hours earlier.

There was moaning and foot-dragging but they went - quicker once they realised they’d still have a decent view from Cooper’s bedroom window.

Clint opened the front door and stepped out onto the porch.

The ramp was just opening up and he headed across the grass to meet them. He needed to be clear that if they ever revealed anything about his family to anyone, he was going to make their lives either very difficult, or very short. Possibly both if he could manage it.

Laura stayed behind on the porch, probably watching him, ready to run in and tackle him if he looked like he was about to swing at someone.

Nat came out first, and there was something off about her posture. Something he recognised very well from fighting side by side for so many years.

He didn’t understand why--

Then he saw the fourth figure coming down the ramp.

‘No. No fucking way.’

Natasha moved to intercept him, ready to take him down if he moved again.

‘Why the hell did you bring _him_ here?! What if--? What if he loses it? My fucking kids are here, Nat.’

Dr Banner just gave him this sad, understanding look.

Clint thought of Lila, and Cooper and what a single swipe of the Hulk’s fist could do to them.

‘No! Not him. Not here.’

‘Barton, calm down.’

Steve stepped up and tried to put a hand on Clint’s shoulder.

Clint stepped back like Cap was trying to hand him a venomous snake.

He wasn’t sure why he did it, just knew that if Steve touched him right now, that he was gonna wind up punching someone and disappointing his wife.

‘Now that’s just rude. Looking at this place I was expecting rustic hospitality. You keep on throwing a tantrum like this and you’re gonna wind up hurting the Big Guy’s feelings, Barton,’ Stark said.

‘Tony, leave it. If I had kids, I wouldn’t want me around them either,’ Bruce said.

And yeah, Clint felt like a dick. Natasha had told him about Bruce putting a gun in his mouth and pulling the trigger - it was hard not to feel for him. But Clint just kept thinking about the Hulk, sweeping enemies aside like they were nothing. Lifting cars and uprooting trees.

‘I’m sorry,’ Bruce said, smiling and making Clint feel even more like a dick. ‘I wouldn’t have come if--’

‘If I hadn’t bullied you into it you mean? Go on, throw me under the bus already.’ Stark turned and looked at Clint. ‘Fury said you needed help, Birdbrain, and that’s what we’re here to do. Don’t worry, Romanoff has already explained what’ll happen if we say anything about your super secret family. In complete, graphic detail. Steve almost puked when she got to the part about what she was going to do to our balls.’

A look at Steve’s face told him it was the truth.

‘Besides, Bruce is pretty much housebroken. If he can manage several days in a lab with me, he can manage just fine here.’

‘Clint, everything okay?’

Laura jogged up to them.

‘Yeah, just...one extra person no one told me about.’ Clint looked at Natasha, narrowing his eyes at her. A heads up would have been nice.

‘I hope I made enough meatloaf for everyone,’ Laura said. ‘Hi, I’m Laura. It’s nice to finally meet you.’

‘Steve Rogers,’ Cap said, holding out his hand. ‘It’s nice to meet you too, ma’am.’

‘Oh, just Laura is fine.’

‘We’re a man down because Thor has other responsibilities - apparently the Avengers is just a hobby for him - but we brought along Dr Banner instead,’ said Stark. Clint guessed he felt like he didn’t need the introductions, since Laura already knew who he was.

‘Dr…’

Clint saw the moment it clicked that she was looking at the Hulk. He saw the same thoughts go through her head, except she only had the newsreel footage to go on. She hadn’t heard the sound at close range of the Hulk swatting a human being into a wall. Hadn’t felt the ground shake as he ran, or her own body vibrate with the reverberations of his roar.

It lasted for a moment only. And then she smiled, greeting Bruce as happily as she had Steve.

_She thinks he’s safe_ , Clint realised. _She thinks he’s safe because he’s here_.

Clint just had to trust that if Dr Banner felt his control start to slip, that he’d get the fuck out of Clint’s house as fast as he could.

\--

‘Mind the salt as you walk in,’ Clint said.

‘The what…? Oh, almost didn’t see that,’ Stark said. When he stepped inside he went quiet.

Quiet on Tony Stark was not a good thing.

Clint didn’t turn around to see the expression that was probably plastered across his face right now.

He knew it probably looked like the home of a crazy person.

‘Barton, what is all of this?’ asked Steve.

‘It’s not satanic,’ Clint said quickly. Steve probably thought Clint was a witch already. ‘It’s there to try and keep _it_ contained.’

‘What _it_? What exactly is going on here? Because when Fury said ‘help’ it was kinda ambiguous exactly he meant. Now if you’re planning to use Rogers as a virgin sacrifice in some kind of black magic ritual then that’s fine by me, but don’t expect me to help.’

Clint looked at Natasha, surprised she hadn’t told them anything of what they were walking into.

‘Our house is haunted,’ Laura said, plain and unapologetically.

‘Excuse me?’

Tony looked at her like he thought she was on drugs.

Laura didn’t seem to care.

‘It’s been going on for months. Honey, show them your arm. This is what it did yesterday.’

Clint rolled up his sleeve.

Natasha snatched his wrist and inspected his arm.

‘These are not scratches. You said scratches.’

‘Well, what d’you call them then?’ Clint said.

‘Lacerations.’

She let go.

‘Let me get this straight, a ghost ripped your arm to shreds? You’re serious about that one.’

‘You think you’re out here for a joke?’ Clint snapped. ‘If it was up to me, you wouldn’t be here.’

‘I knew you didn’t fall off that bunk.’

Dr Banner had been so quiet Clint had almost forgotten he was there.

‘On a mission a few months ago. You went to sleep on one of the bunks in the quinjet…’ Bruce said, once he realised people were staring at him and he needed to explain.

Clint remembered.

‘You didn’t fall. I thought I was wrong, that I was...I don’t know. But it looked like something...like something picked you up and threw you.’

_Well, shit_.

He looked at Laura.

‘See, honey. It’s not the house…’

If it could get to Clint in a jet somewhere over the far side of the Atlantic, then it could get to them anywhere.

There was nowhere they could run.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, I love comments.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stuff gets a tad dark in this one (Brief mention of childhood sexual abuse).

The kids, when they were allowed downstairs, stared in awe for a few moments.

Lila was the first to dart up to Steve and touch him, very deliberately, on the shin - which was about as high as she could reach - before running back and hiding behind her brother.

Steve looked puzzled.

‘They’re real, sweetie. Come on and say hello,’ Clint said.

Clint picked them both up, letting Cooper perch on his right shoulder, while he kept Lila scooped up on his left forearm.

‘Hello,’ Lila said. Then she turned to Clint and whispered something into his ear.

Clint laughed.

‘Steve, she wants to sit on your shoulders. That okay?’

‘I think I can handle that.’

Clint passed her over.

‘Can you touch the ceiling from up there?’ he said, when she was settled. ‘So, that’s Lila, and this here is Cooper. You gonna tell everyone how old you are?’

It still felt wrong, that these people were here - felt like he was standing in the middle of a battlefield without his bow, hearing aids broken and with too much smoke to see clearly. Vulnerable was the word he was looking for, and he didn’t like it applied to him.

Cooper wanted to get down, and made a beeline for Bruce.

Clint had to push down the urge to shout and grab for him, to tell him to stay back.

‘S’cuse me, mister, but are you the Hulk?’

‘Yeah, guess I am.’

‘How come you’re not green now?’

‘’Cus he’s not the Hulk right now, Coop. He’s just Dr Banner,’ Clint said, jumping into the minefield Cooper had brought them to.

‘Oh, okay. I wanted to tell him thanks for looking after Daddy and not letting the dinosaur eat him.’

‘I’ll, er, pass on the message,’ Bruce said, with what might have been a smile.

\--

Lila stayed up on Steve’s shoulders until dinner, when she realised she wouldn’t get any food if she didn’t come down.

‘Don’t think I’ve had meatloaf in...must be about eighty years. It didn’t taste nearly as good as this one,’ Steve said. Clint noticed that his eyes kept coming back to the papers taped to the wall by the window. At a certain point, Clint had stopped bothering to take the old ones down and just put the fresh ones on top.

Clint had been keeping an eye on how quickly they started to decay.

It was different in every room. In Lila and Cooper’s rooms the process was noticeably quicker than the rest of the house. The kitchen ones changed faster than the ones in the bathrooms or by the front door and the ones in the spare rooms were the slowest of all.

Steve cleared his throat.

‘What does it mean? That thing on the wall.’

Clint shrugged.

‘The gypsy said it was to protect against evil. I’ve no idea what it’s called.’

Stark almost choked.

‘Wait. Back up there. The ‘gypsy’?’

‘You heard me,’ Clint said. ‘It seems to work well enough. Damn ghost hasn’t attacked anyone but me since I put them up.’

Lila looked down at her plate.

‘I called it a ‘bad man’. I called it a ‘bad man’ and then it hurt Daddy.’

Her face scrunched up and her lower lip wobbled as the tears started to come.

Natasha acted quickly, like she did in the field - like she did everywhere - pulling Lila onto her lap and hugging her.

‘Oh, _kukolka_ , it’s alright. Shh, it’s alright.’

‘Lila, sweetie, remember what we said. It’s not your fault.’

She raised her head, eyes red and snot just starting to drip.

‘’C-cus he’s a asshole.’

‘Right. ‘Cus he’s an asshole,’ Clint said, smiling and ignoring the glare which was coming from his wife. She probably wasn’t too thrilled about the new addition to their young daughter’s vocabulary.

‘I’m sorry, I’m still stuck on ‘the gypsy’ part of this. When the hell did you meet a gypsy, Barton?’

‘When I lived with the circus,’ Clint said, and then he refused to answer any more of Stark’s questions.

\--

There was a game of rock, paper, scissors to determine who would have to double up, since there weren’t enough rooms for everyone.

Natasha was exempt, which just left Steve, Bruce and Tony.

Clint watched from the kitchen table, where he was drawing out more of the seals for tomorrow. The one in Cooper’s room would need replacing, and he didn’t like the look of the one in the upstairs hall.

Bruce lost the first tournament, which meant he would be sharing. It was down to Stark and Steve to decide who was gonna join him.

He came and sat down at the kitchen table with Clint, while Cooper and Lila cheered on the remaining two players.

‘How do you know this thing protects you?’ Bruce asked. He asked it completely differently from how Tony might ask it, like he was genuinely curious and not just looking to show Clint up.

‘’Cus that’s what the gypsy lady told me. And…’

_Well, might as well. They’re in your house, not much more you can lose._

‘...a little while after she drew it on my hand, my former mentors beat me half to death while my brother watched. Now, that probably sounds like it had the exact opposite effect, but the thing is...they broke my legs, in a couple of places actually, and left me with so many other breaks and fractures I can’t even count. The fact that I survived is lucky enough, but the fact that I don’t walk with a cane, that I don’t have chronic pain every day, and that I can do all the things I do...well, I think you can see why I might just think the fortune-teller wasn’t talking out of her ass.’

‘Yeah, I can see that.’

‘Think it’s starting to lose its effect though,’ Clint said, voicing something he’d been trying to ignore for days.

He told Bruce about the rate of decay, and how it was changing. Speeding up.

Bruce listened, like Clint was speaking actual science to him and not just pseudo-scientific bullshit, and speculation, and Clint really was in over his head and had no idea what to do.

‘If Tony and I brought some equipment, is there a room we could set it all up in?’

‘Uh, no one uses the dining room so you can have that if it’s any--’

‘Well Bruce, looks like you’re bunking up with me. Mrs Barton tells me it’s a double bed, so you better not hog the covers or go selling your story to the press afterwards.’

Tony came over. He looked down at the table and picked up one of Clint’s finished seals.

‘Didn’t have you figured as the kind of guy who believed in this stuff. So, secret family, witchcraft, what else don’t we know? You’re not secretly a Templar are you? Royalty? Mutant?’

‘Tony, do you think we could get some lab equipment up here?’ Bruce said. He started off on a list of things they would need - words which meant fuck all to Clint.

‘You able to get stuff up here without leaving a trail?’ Clint said.

If necessary Nat could always fly back to the Tower and get stuff that way.

‘Did SHIELD ever work out when I hacked them?’

‘After you told us you did, yeah. And you’re not exactly the king of secrecy Mr ‘I am Iron Man’...’

Lila came running over and collided with his leg. Clint lifted her up onto his lap.

‘You okay, pumpkin?’

She nodded.

Clint glanced at the clock - it was starting to get late, past the kids’ regular bedtimes already.

‘I think it’s time for bed, sweetie.’

Lila started to complain.

‘I’ll read you a story. But only if you’re ready for bed in thirty minutes. Go on, Mommy’ll run you a bath.’

Clint looked up and caught Laura’s eye, signing _bath_ and pointing to Lila and then Cooper, who was currently in heated discussion with Steve. Clint had a feeling he was being told off for letting Clint get hurt all the time. Clint was gonna have to try and explain to Cooper that it wasn’t Cap’s fault - Clint was just human and a lot more breakable than the rest of the team.

Lila hopped off Clint’s lap and ran towards the stairs.

Tony and Bruce were giving him weird looks. Clint found it hard to picture Tony settled down with a wife and kids, but maybe the guy still wanted it - just not right now. And Bruce - Clint thought maybe it didn’t really matter what he wanted, because it was never gonna happen. Didn’t stop him from wanting though.

‘You’re a good dad,’ Bruce said.

Clint almost flinched. He shrugged, acted like the compliment wasn’t that big of a deal.

‘Not much to it. The kids make it pretty easy. Before Cooper was born...I thought maybe I wouldn’t be up for it, that my own dad had already fucked that up for me. But then I held Cooper for the first time, and none of it mattered. Figured it was hard to do worse than my old man anyway.’

‘You had a crap dad too?’ Tony asked.

‘He’s the one who did this to me,’ Clint said, pointing to his hearing aids. ‘Smacked me ‘round the head too many times, scrambled something in my ears. He was drunk a lot of the time, seemed like he just plain resented having a family. There are some people just shouldn’t have kids, and he was one of them.’

Tony looked shocked. But Bruce. Clint could tell at a glance that he understood what Clint was talking about. That he’d lived it too.

Clint wouldn’t have guessed it.

Maybe that was where the anger came from.

The anger of being a kid and not being able to stop your dad from hitting your mom, not being able to stand up to the monster who lived in your house.

Clint heard a bang on the counter behind him. He looked around and there was a glass sitting there, half full of an amber-brown liquid.

‘Did either of you see--?’ Clint said.

Tony was up and by the counter. He picked up the glass, frowned, and sniffed the liquid within.

He winced.

‘Whiskey. Not the good stuff.’

Clint got up, grabbed the glass from Tony and tipped the contents into the sink.

‘Hey! We could have analysed that stuff.’

Clint didn’t say anything, holding onto the edge of the sink.

The fucker was toying with him.

The smell of whiskey lingered, wafting up from the sink. It took him back, thirty years back to another farmhouse, where two boys and their mother lived with a monster. A monster Clint had feared and hated and wished was dead every night he could remember. He’d look at the moon outside his window and say the words in his head: _I wish Daddy was dead. I wish Daddy was dead_.

And then it had happened, and Mom had gone too. He hadn’t wanted that last part, and maybe she’d never tried to stop his father, but Clint could remember her sitting by his bed and brushing his hair away from his eyes when he was sick. And Daddy had hurt her too. But maybe that was the price he paid for wishing his dad was dead for so long.  
After that was the foster homes, the group homes - and he couldn’t remember all of them. Maybe he’d blocked out parts - too traumatic. Barney had looked after him back then, but he couldn’t be around all the time. Sometimes Clint would be on his own. He knew at least three of his former foster carers had been paedophiles - he’d found one of them years ago, when he’d been going through a dark patch, killed him with an arrow and when Clint had gone to retrieve it his face had been familiar. Clint thought maybe he could remember it looming over him in a darkened bedroom.

The circus had been better, but barely. Except that wasn’t true because it was there that his brother had chosen a couple of criminals over him, had done nothing when they’d started to beat him, intending to kill him - had just stood there like Mom had when they were little.

It had been hard to get past that.

He hadn’t for years.

Without the circus he’d had to put his skills to a different use, and he hadn’t cared. He’d been little more than an animal back then, surviving and nothing else.

Then came Laura, and things had gotten better.

But the smell of the whiskey was bringing back everything from before that.

He felt a hand on his shoulder, too light a touch to be Bruce or Stark, and Laura was there. She put her arms around him, leaning into him.

His breathing started to slow.

It had been racing and he’d hardly realised, almost hyperventilating.

She reached out and opened the faucet, the water washing the scent away.

\--

The night was quiet.

After the whiskey incident it seemed like the ghost had tired itself out again.

Clint didn’t like it using his past against him, like some kind of supernatural psychological warfare. It was fucked-up, and Clint didn’t like what it did to him.

Telling the team bits and pieces about his past was fine, but having them see the scars it had left was another matter.

He was the weak link as it was.

Completely human, out in the field in minimal body armour, his position on the team wholly dependent on one thing - his aim.

He’d been one of the instigators behind the Battle of New York, and he still hadn’t forgiven himself for the men and women he’d personally killed, nevermind the ones mown down by the mercenaries, the fucking _mercenaries_ , he’d led onto the helicarrier. And then the poor bastard whose eye Loki had gouged out - Clint had told him how to do it, explained that it was the most _efficient_ way of achieving their objective.

For the team to see him fall apart over a glass of whiskey, he was half expecting a sit-down chat tomorrow with Captain Steve Rogers and a _we’ve been thinking about it a lot and we think maybe the Avengers isn’t the right place for you_.

They’d have cause.

He was a mess.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is a lot of cursing and dead things in this one.

Clint did his best to keep the kids out of the way while Cap helped Bruce and Tony to carry in their lab equipment and set up in the dining room.

Of course they wanted to know what everything was, peppering Tony and Bruce with questions. At one point Clint was apologising to them with a Barton child clamped under each arm.

Once it was done Clint made it clear that the lab, formerly the dining room, was now a kid-free zone.

‘Why?’ they whined.

‘Because Tony and Bruce need to work so they can find out how to get rid of ‘you know who’,’ Clint said.

‘The asshole,’ said Lila, helpfully.

‘...uh, yeah. Sweetie, maybe you shouldn’t use that word so much.’

‘Not unless you want to get your daddy in trouble,’ added Natasha.

Clint got the feeling he hadn’t been completely forgiven for the whole scratches-lacerations confusion.

That suspicion was confirmed five minutes later when Natasha dragged him into the downstairs bathroom.

It was a small room - just big enough for a toilet and a sink, with a sloped ceiling. Clint was of course the one with his back pressed against the sink, having to stoop to avoid hitting his head on the ceiling.

‘Strip.’

‘Woah, Nat, you know I’m a married man, right?’

‘Do it.’

Her voice made him feel like there were cobwebs brushing his neck, eight spindly legs catching on the hairs of his neck.

Clint managed to shrug his outer shirt off, and had to duck down to get the t-shirt underneath off.

He avoided looking at Natasha, because he didn’t want to know exactly what level of a lecture he was in for. The anticipation only made it worse.

Several seconds went by in silence.

Clint thought about breaking it himself, asking if he could put his clothes back on or not, but settled on trying not to provoke her further.

He heard the sound of an exhale, passing between clenched teeth.

‘Barton…’

The word was pure _ice_.

But it was followed by more silence.

He decided Nat had seen enough, and started trying to get his t-shirt back on in the cramped, little room. She didn’t move to stop him, but she didn’t move back to try and make it easier.

‘Laura already knows…’ he said, shrugging.

‘Do _not_ pull that with me. She knows it happens. Maybe she’s seen some of them. But do not tell me that she saw all of that...and...and didn’t call me.’

Clint had never heard her struggling for words before. Being the cause did not feel at all satisfying.

‘ _Blyat_ ,’ she hissed. ‘This...this looks like torture, Clint. Why the fuck didn’t you tell me it was this bad?’

‘Because...I can handle it, Nat.’

‘So, does that mean I can beat the shit out of you? Because you can handle that. Just because you can doesn’t mean you should, or you have to, Barton.’

‘It was hurting my kids.’

‘And now it’s hurting you. In front of your kids. Scaring them, and that’s exactly what it wants. I think you and I both know what an effective control method fear is.’

Clint wanted to tell her he wasn’t scared, but there was no way she was going to buy that. The only way a lie like that would get past Natasha was if she was dead and, as recent events had proved, even that might not be enough.

‘I thought you trusted me,’ Natasha said.

And that was like swallowing a fistful of broken glass. Clint thought her being mad at him was bad, but it had nothing on this. On seeing her _hurt_ like this.

_Please let this be an act, let her be toying with me_.

‘I do. I’m sorry.’

‘Then act more like it. And don’t ever leave me out of the fucking loop again. Or we’ll see exactly how much pain and suffering you can endure before you finally pass out, and I assure you it’ll be much more than you think.’

Clint thought she was joking, _hoped_ she was joking, but he wasn’t going to bet anything he didn’t mind losing on it.

‘Get Bruce to look at these. It’s a miracle they’re not infected.’

He knew better than to try and protest that he’d kept them clean, that he’d dressed the worst ones - the ones he could reach anyway.

She probably knew all that.

‘Will you do it by yourself, or do I need to escort you?’

‘Fine, I’ll go to Bruce.’

‘Why do I have the feeling it’ll be the first smart decision you’ve made in a long time?’ she muttered, nudging the door open behind her and leaving him where he was.

\--

‘You know you really should have put stitches in this one,’ Bruce said. ‘Too late now.’

Clint’s dining room had changed a lot.

The only thing he recognised was the chair he was currently sat on. Everything else had been overrun by machines and cables. He’d have thought Bruce and Tony had been in residence for months not hours.

If he’d had an electric bill he would be seriously worried about it now.

‘Yeah, I can do a lot of things but stitching up my own lower back is not one of them, Doc.’

‘So if it had been somewhere else...then you would’ve sewn it shut yourself?’

‘Well, yeah.’

He couldn’t tell if Bruce was shocked or not, or if he disapproved.

Most people did. Coulson had, but then he had gone and put Clint on first aid and field medicine courses. It had actually been helpful, but most of the courses contained a whole lot of pictures from when things went wrong. Clint hadn’t known that the human body had so many disgusting, nauseating colours in it. He was used to seeing blood - but necrosis was a new one. Needless to say it had put Clint off of handling his own wounds, at least when the SHIELD medical teams were nearby.

The dining room door opened and Stark walked in looking down at the tablet in his hands.

‘Well, that’s the last of the sensors put up so we’re--’

He saw Clint.

The pause was only half a second longer than usual for Stark to come up with one of his usual one-liners, but Clint noticed it.

‘You know I’ll be the last to judge what happens between two consenting adults in the confines of the bedroom, but do you think that maybe you and Mrs Barton ought to cool it a little bit? Or at least get her to file down her nails? Just a thought.’

‘Very funny,’ Clint said.

‘Doesn’t look like any of them are infected. Yet. If you’ve got antiseptic cream I suggest you use it.’

‘Thanks, Doc,’ Clint said, starting to pull his shirt back on.

‘Wait up just a second. The ghost did this?’ asked Tony. Clint could see that he really wanted to use air quotes on the g-word, He appreciated the restraint.

‘Yeah.’

Clint maybe saw a flicker of fear on Tony’s face, before it vanished behind his usual bravado.

‘You get any warning? Changing air temperatures maybe?’

‘No. Most of the time it’s just out of nowhere...like it wants me to know I’m not safe anywhere.’

‘Hmm,’ Tony said. And then he crouched down and prodded a scabbing trio of marks close to his impalement scar.

It didn’t hurt exactly, but Clint usually liked to be asked before someone started touching him.

‘They’re real, if that’s what you’re wondering. No oatmeal or food colouring here.’

He leaned away and finished pulling on his shirt.

‘What were you saying about sensors?’ Clint asked.

‘Oh. I put up sensors all round the house, measuring temperature, EMF - all those things the average ‘paranormal investigator’ looks for - plus a dozen other things. No cameras, before you ask. Bruce talked me out of it - said you wouldn’t like it.’

Clint gave a nod of thanks in Bruce’s direction.

He looked back at Tony.

‘All those sensors leave when you do.’

‘Or you’ll snitch on me to Natasha. I get it. Believe me, I am gonna do my best not to get on her bad side after what she said to us on the ride over. I’m never gonna be able to look at a power sander in the same way…’

‘Yeah, she’s pretty inventive,’ Clint said. ‘And that’s all her. The Red Room are a lot more vanilla when it comes to physical torture, so I’m told.’

‘I’ve never heard somebody refer to torture as ‘vanilla’ before. Kinda creepy, Barton’

Clint shrugged. He looked at Bruce.

‘Thanks again for the help. If your sensors pick anything up...well, I guess I’ll probably already know. The smell usually gives him away.’

He left the room before Tony could ask more questions.

It was hard to think when exactly things like waterboarding, like having teeth and fingernails ripped out, became routine. When realising that someone was _only_ planning to beat him became a cause for relief. It felt like a long time - like he couldn’t remember it being different.

He guessed maybe that made him abnormal, different from Steve and Tony and even from people like Bruce. They were all struggling in some way against the violence which dominated their lives. And sometimes, Clint felt that maybe he’d given in to it instead. It wasn’t something to fight against, something to reject or restrain, it just _was_.

\--

‘Daddy.’

Cooper came up to him and pulled at his sleeve.

‘What’s the matter, kiddo?’

‘He’s outside.’

Clint put down the chalk he’d been drawing on the floor with.

‘Where? Show me.’

He got up and Cooper led him downstairs to the kitchen.

It was quiet in the house.

Natasha and Steve were out on a much needed grocery run - they were down to their last roll of toilet paper - while Laura and Lila were reading in her room. Bruce and Tony were in the lab.

The backdoor was open.

Cooper pointed out towards the treeline.

‘There.’

Clint looked. He didn’t see an obvious blood-drenched man anywhere.

Cooper made a frustrated noise.

‘Next to the tree like this!’ he said, holding his arms out in an impression of one of the birches.

Clint spotted it. He looked harder.

And he saw a hand.

It was like he was looking at a photograph, which had somehow been double exposed.

It wasn’t a full flesh and blood hand - if it had been Clint would have grabbed his bow and solved the problem then and there. The ‘Trespassers will be Shot’ signs were not an empty threat on the Barton residence.

And it wasn’t his brain playing tricks.

Even from this distance he could see all the details of the thumb and most of the fingers, up to the wrist where he lost track. He could make out the buttons on a shirt - he couldn’t tell what colour it was meant to be. It was like a partially erased line drawing sketched over the backdrop of the woods.

There wasn’t a head that Clint could see.

‘Go and knock on the dining room door and tell Tony and Bruce to come here,’ Clint said.

‘Daddy…’

‘I’ll be okay, Coop,’ he said.

Cooper grabbed his arm and shook his head, trying to pull Clint back away from the door. It would have been adorable if not for how clearly petrified the kid was.

‘Coop, go do what I asked, pl--’

‘No!’

Clint heard footsteps overhead, which meant Laura had heard Cooper’s shout.

The moment Clint opened his mouth to speak again Cooper interrupted him, telling - or rather, begging - him not to go outside.

‘What’s going on?’ Laura asked, and Lila was there too, hiding behind her mother.

‘Mommy, make Daddy not go! I’m sorry, I’m sorry.’

Lila, peeking around her mother’s leg, started shrieking too and then ran back towards the stairs, almost falling as she scrambled up them.

Clint glanced outside again, almost expecting the hand to have vanished from his sight.

It was still there.

‘Laura, can you see it, too?’

He described the tree, the other surroundings, but Laura just shook her head. She glanced over her shoulder, obviously worried about Lila.

‘Look after him, can you? And go tell Tony and Bruce the kids have seen--’

Cooper started wailing again.

Clint glanced at the kitchen table and spotted a pen.

It was a permanent marker, but needs must - and the thing would come off eventually if he scrubbed hard enough at it.

He picked up the pen and sketched a triquetra on his forearm and a handful of other symbols he’d looked up.

He’d been working on a new seal when Cooper had come and got him, something he’d come up with on his own after several days worth of research.

There was a certain logic to it, he was finding. Like learning a new language.

‘There. I’m protected, alright? So, I’m safe to go out there and tell him to go away. He can’t hurt me.’

He understood the irony of that. The black lines crossing over the scabbed ones the ghost had left before.

Cooper quietened down, enough for Clint to detach himself and step down off of the porch and start walking towards the treeline.

The hand was still there.

And Clint almost stopped when he saw the hand move, curling into a transparent fist.

Then he reminded himself: _You’ve fought aliens. You knocked a freaking god off his ride. Whoever this fucker is, you can take him_.

Even though he knew it would have been useless, Clint kind of wanted his bow - it was hard to feel completely confident marching up unarmed on the undead, with only a load of black squiggles on his arm to protect him.

Except, maybe, for all he knew, the symbols on his arm were the spiritual equivalent of a rocket launcher.

He kind of wished they had a magic user on the team - Thor didn’t count, since his primary mode of attack was to bash things with a very solid hunk of metal until they didn’t get up anymore. Somebody who could explain this shit to him and help him.

He was about twenty-five feet away when the hand, and the hazy form it was a part of, drew back and vanished behind another tree.

Clint broke into a jog, but it was gone.

Something felt off, as soon as he entered the trees.

The first thing was the smell.

He almost choked on it at first.

The death stink was so much stronger than it had been before, drowning out the hot metal and oil smell which the ghost usually brought with it.

The second thing was the sound.

Until Clint stepped on a twig, he thought maybe it was his hearing aids playing up. Because it was quiet. Whenever Clint had been in these woods before there’d be birdsong, the snuffling noises of small creatures going through the leaf litter.

Now there was only a humming - a humming which seemed to fill his belly with dread and he couldn’t work out why.

He tried messing about with the settings on the hearing aids, taking a few staggering steps further into the trees. Nothing made the humming any less insistent.

The tip of his boot caught on something in the undergrowth.

It didn’t trip him - he wasn’t that much of a klutz - but it was enough to make him stop and look.

He saw bones, the tiny ribcage of a rabbit or a squirrel or some other small and furry creature long since deceased. Most of the body had been absorbed back into the surroundings, enough that it was impossible to tell what had killed.

Clint looked up and saw the black haze.

He’d finally worked out what the humming was all about.

Flies.

Clint couldn’t begin to guess their numbers.

The swarm was so thick in places it was almost opaque.

The undergrowth was flattened down, and Clint saw antlers and hooves, little unidentifiable patches of fur and maggot ridden flesh, beaks, feathers, and, most disturbing of all, when the swarm of flies crawling over the corpses moved, bright, pink guts.

Clint didn’t go any further.

He took a few steps back and leaned against a tree.

He looked down and bit back a laugh.

There, inches from his toes, was a coyote, its eyes not yet eaten away by insects.

The creature’s guts were spread out over the ground, almost like they’d been pulled out. Clint saw blood drops splattering the leaves.

If he bent down and touched the coyote’s pelt, he could almost imagine it would still be warm.

_We didn’t hear any of this_.

Looking at the blood, at the ragged wounds which couldn’t all be the product of natural decay, it didn’t seem like these animals had just laid down and died.

Clint didn’t doubt it was supposed to be a warning.

_If this is what I can do to a coyote, what do you think I could do to you?_

‘Hey, Barton! What’s going on?’

Clint looked over his shoulder and saw Tony and Bruce walking up.

‘I wouldn’t come much closer if I were you. Unless you like the idea of losing your lunch,’ Clint said.

He turned his back on the coyote, on the animal boneyard, and went back to the edge of the woods.

Tony wrinkled his nose.

‘Yeah, I can smell that from here. What--?’

‘Dead animals. Dozens of them, probably more. There’s even a fucking coyote which looks pretty fresh.’

Clint stepped passed them, into the fresh air and sat down on the grass.

‘Fuck…’

He put his head down, trying to get the image of the coyote, with its tongue sticking out and its lifeless eyes, out of his mind.

‘Holy shit!’

Clint looked up and saw Tony had ignored his warning and ventured into the woods.

‘Barton, come look at this.’

Clint didn’t want to.

‘What is it?’ he said, as he got up, hoping Tony would just tell him.

‘Now, I don’t know a whole lot about cougars - well maybe I know a little, but definitely not the kind that tends to hang out in the great outdoors - but this looks pretty cougar-y to me.’

Bruce was still standing on the edge of the trees.

Clint didn’t like the look of him.

‘You feeling alright there, Bruce?’

‘Yeah. Just about. I got it.’

Clint passed him and went back into the woods.

Tony was standing off to one side, in the same general area but a different spot to the one Clint had looked at.

Clint glanced at the corpse.

‘That...was a mountain lion, alright.’

They didn’t even get mountain lions. There were sightings from time to time, maybe a couple passing through. And now there was one lying dead in Clint’s backyard.

‘Okay. I’m impressed,’ Clint said, to the surrounding woods. ‘Is the plan to get me in trouble with Fish and Wildlife or something? Because this isn’t doing shit.’

Tony looked at him like he was nuts.

‘The son of a bitch is out here listening, I can guarantee it,’ Clint said.

Tony shrugged pulling out a small device from his pocket, probably something he’d thrown together in his temporary lab.

‘Well my Stark Ghost Detector - patent pending - says you’re full of shit, Barton.’

‘Yeah, you’re sure that piece of junk works?’

‘I made it, so of course it wor--’

A light came on.

‘Sir, I am detecting low levels of--’

Clint heard JARVIS’s voice emanating from the machine in Stark’s hand.

At the same time Clint felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up, as a familiar smell filled the air.

Clint tensed.

The leaves near his feet rustled, almost as though there was a snake moving through them. Clint stayed still, unsure of which direction the blow would come from.

‘A location would be nice, JARVIS. See Barton, told you it works.’

‘My sensors indicate that the source is currently approximately three inches from Agent Barton’s location.’

Clint tried not to groan as a shiver ran down his spine.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These chapters always seem longer when I'm writing them...then I stick them in here and Ao3 looks at me like 'is this it?'

Clint wanted to ask Tony what the next part of the plan was, now that he’d confirmed for himself something Clint’s family had known about for months.

‘JARVIS, see if you can disrupt the field somehow - cancel it out.’

The buzzing from the flies stopped as whatever Stark did shorted out something in Clint’s hearing aids.

The smell was still there.

As was something else.

Clint felt it like he had so many times in the house, like something was occupying the space next to him.

He could feel it breathing on the back of his neck.

Clint sighed and told Stark about the busted hearing aids, and also about the breathing.

Lipreading Stark was always a nightmare, because he never kept still, so Clint didn’t catch what he said after that. Clint hoped there was a sorry in there somewhere, but he wouldn’t bet on it. He was probably only talking to JARVIS.

‘Get on with it already,’ Clint said - it was meant for the ghost but Tony probably didn’t know that.

The breathing carried on.

Deep, heavy pants.

Clint turned around, staring at the spot where he guessed the eyes would be.

‘If you were gonna do something scary to me then you missed your window. It was about five seconds ago. So hit me, scratch me or throw the dead fucking cougar at me already, so I can go back inside.’

Hot, stinking breaths hit his face, but Clint knew he couldn’t back away. No way was he gonna be the first to back down.

He waited, getting more annoyed as the seconds passed.

A thought occurred to Clint, and he looked down at the symbols on his forearm.

Maybe the reason it wasn’t attacking this time, was that it couldn’t.

A split second later a gust of air barrelled passed him.

The next breath he took, he realised that the oily smell was gone, leaving only the rotten stench from the dead animals.

Clint glanced back at Tony.

He opened his mouth to tell him it was gone, when something else happened.

Clint _heard_ it.

Which meant it had to be loud. Really loud.

And then there were the vibrations thrumming through the ground and the oh shit look on Tony’s face.

Clint looked to the edge of the trees where Bruce had been standing.

He wasn’t standing there anymore.

\--

Clint reacted quickly.

Which meant he didn’t stop to think. About the consequences. Specifically for him.

The Hulk was standing with his back to Clint and Tony, facing towards the house. The house where Laura and his kids were.

Clint picked up a rock and threw it.

He thought maybe Tony was shouting something at him, but Clint didn’t have the time to try and work out what he was saying.

Didn’t have time to come up with a solid plan for what happened _after_ the rock hit the back of Hulk’s neck and the gigantic bundle of muscle turned and roared right at him.

There wasn’t even time for a single, solitary _fuck!_ to pass through his head.

Not if he wanted to survive the next five minutes.

He took off running, and if Tony had any sense he’d do the same - but in a different direction from Clint. Hopefully to go get into his armour, because Clint had a feeling he was going to need the help.

He could feel every footstep behind him, as it reverberated through the dirt.

There was no way he was going to be able to outrun the Hulk.

But Clint wasn’t thinking that far ahead.

_Lead him away. Far enough. Just far enough so he doesn’t go back towards the house._

He vaulted over a log, skidding in a patch of mud and almost falling. He slammed a palm against a tree trunk to steady himself before pushing on ahead. He could not afford to lose momentum now.

When the terrain sloped, he went with it, hurtling along and hoping he didn’t hit anything. If he ran into a broken branch at this speed he’d probably impale himself again. And if that didn’t kill him, then what was chasing him definitely would.

He’d fucked up.

His brain was flitting through his options but he couldn’t see an ending to this chase which didn’t involve getting smashed into a paste.

The only thing he could think of was finding somewhere to hide, let the Hulk go on passed and tire himself out, but there wasn’t any--

The log just barely clipped him on the right side, the bulk of it smashing against a tree and sending shards of wood into his face and neck.

A direct hit probably would have shattered his spine and sent him flying, but the glancing blow was enough to bring him off balance.

His right foot came down wrong and his ankle rolled, throwing him down.

He brought his arms up, to try and protect his face. When he hit the ground he kept on going, tumbling on down the slope.

He kept his eyes shut, trying to protect them from the dirt and the stones and the twigs stabbing at him.

Then, without warning, there was nothing under him.

And half a second later there was.

Water splashed over him and the cold felt like a heart attack.

He opened his eyes, looking up at the small dirt overhang he’d rolled off of before he hit the creek.

Another log landed in the water a few feet away, splashing the far bank.

The wood at the ends was yellow and fresh, ripped straight from a living tree.

Clint sat up.

No way were they far enough away yet. He had to get up, keep moving.

The ground around him shook, dirt dropping onto him from the overhang, the roots inside trembling.

There were over a dozen separate points of pain Clint could identify, but nothing felt broken. He could still do this, he could still get up and run.

The dirt above him collapsed under the weight of an enormous foot.

Clint scrambled backwards, pain spiking up from his left knee, scraping over the rocks on the creekbed, and he was looking up at the Hulk.

He was grateful for the freezing cold of the water, in a way, because it meant he didn’t have to think about whether or not he’d peed his pants.

‘Hey, Big Guy, you know your other half is going to be real upset if he wakes up and finds out you’ve smashed me to a pulp.’

Clint felt the roar which followed right through to his bones. If he hadn’t been totally deaf before, he certainly was now.

It hadn’t been how he wanted to die.

Either he’d go out in a blaze of glory, fighting for what was right, or he’d die of old age surrounded by Laura, his kids, and hopefully a couple of grandkids too by that stage.

Those were the acceptable options.

Nowhere had he considered being beaten to death by one of his coworkers in what was pretty much his own backyard.

But this was just how these things went. And really, Clint hadn’t expected to make it this far anyway.

He shut his eyes and waited for the Hulk to crack open his skull.

And then he waited some more.

He was starting to think maybe it had already happened, and how he hadn’t been expecting it to be so painless, when he opened his eyes and looked up.

The Hulk was no longer looking at him, in fact he had his back to him facing something up on the slope.

He was facing Natasha.

Clint swallowed down the urge to call her name, to ask her what the fuck she was doing and to get out of there.

Her cheeks were flushed like she’d been running, her hair in wisps around her face. She was still wearing the jeans and t-shirt she’d left the house in.

Clint would rather have seen anyone else.

Stark had his armour, Steve had the serum. Both would have struggled against the Hulk, but both would have stood a better chance of living to the end of the fight than just Nat.

She was talking, calm and focused. She might have been discussing the weather with a neighbour, over their shared fence while she tended the roses in her backyard.

They’d make up stories together sometimes, putting meat on the bones of an alias, and they were full of little details like that. _Cassie likes gardening. She learned from her father. The roses were planted in his memory after he died four years back_. It was a ‘maybe’ life, the one Natasha might have led if things had been different.

The Hulk shifted, muscles rippling, and Clint heard a dull noise like a gong - the muffled residue of a roar.

Nat was still on the slope.

She had her hand held out.

Clint was toying with an idea, of getting up, doing whatever he could to get the Hulk’s attention back on him, when Natasha caught his eye.

He understood the look as meaning _don’t fucking move, Barton_.

He wanted to believe she had a plan, one that finished up with both of them alive and well. And ideally one that didn’t involve him sitting in freezing cold water for much longer.

It felt like his balls had crawled back to where they’d started.

The Hulk took a step forward, but something had changed.

Natasha edged further down the slope, until she was within touching distance.

Clint kept expecting the Hulk to grab her, to slam her against the trees. But then the Hulk reached out, and Clint realised what the change was.

The rage had faded.

Natasha held the Hulk’s hand - or, more accurately, she held a finger - eyes on him and still talking.

Clint wondered if maybe it was some kind of hypnosis, or even a spell. Or maybe she was just talking - just being reasonable, and even the Hulk wasn’t a match for that.

When the Hulk staggered back Clint did his best to get out of the way.

For a moment the Hulk turned to look at him and Clint thought maybe he was still gonna die, but then the Hulk swayed, like he was drunk - like Natasha had poisoned him - and he was staggering off into the trees, moving downhill and out of sight.

Clint collapsed back, letting out a deep, shuddering breath. He started to shiver, his teeth chattering. He tried to move, to get out of the water, and suddenly Nat was by his side helping him.

‘Stark busted my hearing aids,’ Clint told her.

He’d have time to ask her what the hell she’d done to the Hulk after he was on dry land.

Gently, Natasha helped him to his feet.

He couldn’t stand to put much weight on his left knee, and the right side of his face itched like mad from all the splinters. Those were gonna be fun to remove.

Nat helped him hobble over to a rock at the edge of the creek.

He looked down and saw blood dripping from his pant leg. The cold had numbed his legs pretty good, so he could only guess where the blood was coming from.

When Natasha saw it she made him get up again so she could look.

Now that he was starting to warm up there was a sharp, insistent pain in his right thigh.

Natasha pushed him back and looked at him.

 _You have a stick embedded in your leg_ , she signed. _Do not panic_.

‘Wasn’t gonna panic,’ he said. ‘Thought I’d be dead.’

Natasha turned her head like she’d heard something, like someone had called her name, and Clint saw her wave at Steve as he came down the slope.

Clint watched his lips, but soon gave up trying to follow the conversation between him and Nat. She was facing the wrong way, and Clint was cold and tired, and he just knew Steve was going to end up carrying him back to his house like a fucking damsel.

Natasha shook him, and signed something at him.

_What happened?_

Clint shrugged.

‘Cooper said he saw something outside. I went and looked. Found lots of fucking bones. A _lot_ of bones. Dr Banner and Stark followed and then... _it_ got mad. Bruce hulked out, and I made him chase me so he wouldn’t...wouldn’t go for the house.’

He glanced in the direction Bruce had gone.

‘What...what did you do, Nat?’ he asked.

 _Doesn’t matter_ , Nat signed.

Steve touched his shoulder, the right one, and Clint winced at the throb it sent thrumming through the joint.

‘Ow,’ he said.

 _Sorry_ , Steve signed. And then, apologetically, _I have to carry you back to the house_.

‘Yeah, yeah, I figured since I’m not in a fit state to walk anywhere. Just make it quick.’

Clint ended up on Steve’s back, because there was no fucking way he was letting the guy bridal carry him if he could avoid it. Clint finally felt the twig which had punched its way into his thigh. He had half a mind just to tear it out then and there, but Natasha probably wouldn’t let him. It didn’t feel like it was in that deep, but there would still be blood. Better to do it somewhere where he’d be less likely to bleed to death.

Stark turned up in his armour just as Steve was about to get moving. This time Clint made no attempt to keep up with anything that was being said. He dropped his forehead against Steve’s shoulder and tried to focus on getting his heart rate back down. It was still thundering along, stubbornly, and honestly Clint was feeling a little dizzy from all the adrenaline. It had just sunk in how close he’d come to being killed by one of his friends. Not even by accident - and god knew the Hulk was a friendly fire nightmare - but deliberately. If Nat hadn’t stepped in Clint would be little more than a stain on the underside of the Hulk’s fist by now.

When he shivered, he could pretend it was just the cold. He’d be the only one who knew different.

\--

 _This is gonna hurt_ , Natasha signed.

‘Get it over with,’ Clint said.

He was sat, pretty much naked, on his bathroom floor while Natasha did what she could about his wounds.

Bruce probably would have been the better option to pull the stick out of his leg, but he wasn’t in much shape to do it.

Stark had helped Bruce back to the house, and the last Clint heard he’d gone to his room to sleep. He was probably going to feel like shit when he woke up and realised what his alter ego had done.

Laura was pissed, and Clint knew all she was waiting for was for him to get cleaned up and put a spare pair of hearing aids in before she laid into him. The kids had been distraught, and he hadn’t really been able to explain to them that it looked worse than it was. He wasn’t looking forward to that, to having to try and put things back together for them. Clint hoped they hadn’t both been watching when Bruce had transformed, because that shit was gonna leave a mark. It was one thing seeing him on television - it was a whole nother ball game having him on your doorstep.

Clint hoped he didn’t curse too loudly when Natasha wrenched the twig out of his thigh. Or when she started trying to clean out the wound. He thought the first part hurt bad, but _that_ took the cake.

She left him alone to let him shower, before she tried to put bandages and dressings on. Clint was just happy to be clean, for all the splinters and dirt and leaves and twigs to be gone. As soon as his head was dry he put in a spare pair of hearing aids.

They were old, with an annoying tendency to favour background noise over speech and overall subpar sound quality, but next to the nothing he’d had in the woods it was bliss.  
‘So, Laura seemed like she’s pretty pissed at me,’ he said.

‘Can you blame her?’ Natasha said, wrapping the bandage around his thigh. She’d brought him an ice pack to hold against his injured knee, to try and slow down the swelling.

Clint could still see that he was gonna have trouble walking for the next few weeks though.

‘No,’ Clint said. ‘No, I can’t. If you hadn’t shown up when you did…’

‘Finished,’ Natasha said. ‘You can take care of the rest of these yourself?’ she asked, gesturing to the small cuts and scrapes still covering his body.

‘Yeah, thanks. Can you...see if you can calm down the kids? They looked pretty upset. I’ll be down as soon as I can…’

Natasha nodded, and left him to it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If there are any stray words, I apologise - was having a bit of a weird word day. Correctly spelled words, just the wrong ones. Think I got all of them in editing though.
> 
> I'm not hard of hearing myself, so if there are any major inaccuracies in how I've portrayed that please let me know. I've tried my best with research, but I know that's not the same as experience.


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Less scares more feels this time.

It was only when he saw Clint that Cooper finally stopped crying.

Clint had to pick him, and his shoulder throbbed but he didn’t make a sound, cuddling Cooper until the sobs stopped completely.

‘I’m okay, buddy. I promise. Bit banged up, but I’m okay.’

Steve and Tony were sat on the couch, both looking tired and pale. Clint guessed both of them were feeling a little guilty - Stark because he’d insisted on bringing Bruce, and Steve because he was the team leader and he cared about these things.

Laura was sat with Lila on her lap, staring into the distance with a shellshocked look on her face. Natasha was next to her, an arm around her shoulders.

Cooper mumbled something into his neck. Clint heard enough to pick out the question.

‘No, he didn’t mean to, Coop. He just got confused. He’s still one of the good guys, it was just a misunderstanding.’

Cooper’s next question was clearer.

‘Did...did the bad man do something to him?’

Clint paused.

The seal was still on his arm, although faded by the soap and water.

‘Yeah. I think he did. And...I need to finish something so he doesn’t do it again. Can I put you down for a second?’

Cooper nodded, and Clint set him down on the couch.

‘Barton, what are you doing?’ Steve asked, when Clint grabbed a pen and headed towards the stairs.

‘Witchcraft,’ Clint muttered.

\--

He knocked, so it wasn’t rude.

‘Gimme your arm,’ Clint said, sitting on the side of the bed.

Bruce clearly hadn’t stopped to take a shower before he’d crashed out on the bed. Clint assumed he had Tony to thank for the fact that Bruce was under, rather than on top of the covers. If he hadn’t stopped to shower, he probably hadn’t stopped to put on clothes either.

Bruce mumbled his name, blinking up at him and apparently trying to work out if he was dreaming or not.

‘Arm. C’mon,’ Clint said. He pulled the cap off the pen with his teeth and held his right hand out. Bruce flopped his arm down and Clint started drawing. It was messier - Bruce’s arm hair was a lot thicker than his, but Clint managed. It was easier than drawing on himself. He added a bow and arrow symbol around the edges - because it felt right somehow.

‘There. Now the son of a bitch won’t be able to mess with you anymore.’

Clint let go and put the cap back on the pen. Bruce continued to stare at him, like Clint was the ghost.

‘Clint...I...didn’t I…?’

‘Don’t worry about it. Get some sleep.’

Clint left the room before Bruce could say anything else, could ask him what had happened, and Clint had to tell him that the Hulk had been a hair’s breadth away from smashing his skull in.

He’d find out soon anyway, and Clint knew enough about Bruce to know he’d take it hard - even if he didn’t show it. Going back to sleep would only buy him a few more hours, but when he woke up again at least he’d be facing things while reasonably refreshed.

For now though, Clint was reasonably comfortable that Bruce was safe.

He crouched down in front of the shut door, ignoring the pain in his knee, and pulled out the pen again.

Probably Laura wouldn’t be too thrilled about him drawing on the doors, but hopefully she wouldn’t see it. And he could always offer to paint over it afterwards.

Clint drew out the seal on the corner of the door, and he’d been right about those bow and arrows. It really pulled the whole thing together.

He wondered if maybe he was getting too into this whole witchcraft thing. Before he knew it there’d be incense and naked ceremonies in the backyard under the full moon.

Everyone needed a hobby though.

\--

Steve ambushed him before he made it down the stairs.

‘Barton, are you okay?’

Clint was glad he hadn’t asked the question when they’d been downstairs, and Clint’s kids were in earshot - where he would have to say ‘yes’ no matter what.

‘No, I don’t think I am, Cap. But I’ll work it out. Hey, humour me. Can I borrow your arm?’

Steve paused for a second, like he was trying to work out if this was some weird future idiom he hadn’t caught up on yet.

‘Naw, I mean your actual arm. I wanna draw something on it.’

Steve held out his arm. He didn’t have arms like a werewolf, so the lines ended up much cleaner. Clint was happy with it.

‘What is this?’ Steve asked, a little hesitant. Like maybe he thought Clint had just turned him into ghost-bait or signed his soul over to Satan.

Clint shrugged.

‘Protection charm,’ he said.

Steve looked down at it and frowned.

Clint moved passed him, heading on downstairs.

When he mentioned drawing the seal on everyone, nobody asked why.

Lila squirmed - apparently the pen tickled. It got a smile out of her though, and that made Clint feel a little better.

As soon as he sat down he got mobbed. Lila and Cooper clambered onto him, like a pair of baby bears trying to climb a tree. Lila scored an almost direct hit on his injured thigh.

‘Ow, ow, ow, watch the leg kiddos.’

Cooper clung to his side, while Lila sat on his arm with her arms around the neck. He had the feeling he wasn’t going to be able to move for a while.

Not that he minded.

Just under two hours ago he’d been convinced he’d never see them again.

‘I’m sorry I made you worry,’ he said.

Neither child said anything, just hugging tighter.

\--

‘So, how bad was it?’

Bruce appeared downstairs without warning.

Laura almost dropped the plate she’d been drying.

The kids were upstairs, in bed - it had taken almost every persuasive trick in the books to get them to let go of Clint and settle down.

‘You can’t tell?’ Clint said, gesturing to his face where the skin was still red from the splinters, and the abrasions were only just starting to scab over.

Bruce winced, and Clint felt a pang of sympathy.

‘Clint...I’m sorry.’

Laura was holding onto the edges of the plate, her knuckles pale.

‘Tony can fill you in,’ Clint said, gesturing towards the dining room. Stark was indulging in some science therapy - the only time Clint had seen him over the last six hours was when he’d stepped into the kitchen to brew more coffee.

Bruce glanced at Laura’s back - she hadn’t turned to look at him - and nodded. Clint wanted to say something else, but the only thing he could think of was _nobody important got hurt_ , which would have really pushed Laura over the edge. It wasn’t worth the argument, so Clint said nothing until he heard the dining room door shut.

Laura put the plate down and leaned against the sink.

She looked like she knew what she wanted to say but didn’t know what words to use. And Clint wanted to defend Bruce, but really, this was what he’d feared would happen.

Exactly why he hadn’t wanted him here.

For a moment Clint worried that Laura would push him away when he hugged her - would see it as an attempt at distraction from a conversation he didn’t want to have. But then she softened.

‘When I heard that _sound_ I...I went to look and I saw Tony but not...not you. And then Steve and Nat were here, and their faces just looked so...and I thought I..I…’

She made a noise of frustration, grabbing a handful of his shirt.

‘I thought for sure they’d be bringing back a corpse. What the hell happened Clint? Tony said something about...dead animals...’

‘Yeah. We must have most of the county’s wildlife dead in our backyard right now. There’s even a mountain lion out there. When’s the last time you heard of a mountain lion in Iowa? And I mean a credible claim that wasn’t total bullshit?’

He heard what might have been a laugh.

Laura pulled back and looked up at him.

‘Tell me what happened.’

Clint sighed.

‘ _It_ was out there too. Had a nice little staring contest…’cept of course I couldn’t see him. I drew this on my arm before I went out there,’ he said, gesturing to the markings on his arm, and now on Laura’s. ‘I think it stopped him from being able to hurt me like it had before - with the scratches. I reckon it got pissed, then it saw Bruce. Made him lose control somehow.’

‘But why’d he’d chase you like that? You’re his _friend_.’

Clint shrugged. He wasn’t going to tell her about the rock, because she didn’t need to know about the rock, and if he did then he wouldn’t hear the end of it.

‘Is...Is he always like that?’ she asked.

‘Like what? Out of control? It’s pretty much what the Hulk does. Most of the time he’s aiming at the right people though.’

None of what he’d said seemed to have helped things, she was still looking at him like he’d admitted to practising juggling with live grenades.

‘Babe, it can’t get to him in here. Not anymore.’

‘So he’s safe then? He won’t...he’s got control, right?’

Technically, Clint wasn’t lying to her when he said ‘yes’. It wasn’t like Dr Banner would Hulk out over a sneeze, but it wasn’t like Bruce was the one in total charge of the switch, either.

If it had been up to Clint, he’d be out already, but seeing all those bodies had made him realise he needed all the help he could get.

And Stark’s piece of junk had worked. Sure, it was pretty useless, but maybe Stark would be able to springboard off it and make something which _could_ actually bust this ghost.

Or at the very least give Clint a way to bust it himself.

\--

‘We need to talk,’ Clint said, kicking the dining room door shut behind him.

Bruce looked at him, and Clint wondered how much Tony had told him. He hadn’t been there, after all, when Clint was cowering in the creek, eyes shut and just waiting to die.

Only Nat had seen that part. And the Hulk, of course.

‘Clint…’

‘Stark, how easy would it be for you to get a picture of this thing?’

Tony rubbed the bridge of his nose.

‘This more of your black magic? I get a picture of the ghost, you burn it and the spook just disappears.’

‘If it were that easy to get rid of someone I’d have burned your photo long ago. No, I’m trying to get his name.’

‘I fail to see how that’s any different from having a picture,’ Tony said.

‘Ask Nat. She’s the one who gave me the idea.’

‘I knew it. They’re both witches,’ Stark said.

‘Can you do it or not?’

‘Not really my area of expertise, Barton. Sure, I could _try_ , but I can’t guarantee anything.’

‘What about sound? Could you get its voice? It would be something at least. I have a plan B, but it’s shit. I really don’t want to do plan B.’

Stark raised an eyebrow at him.

‘What’s plan B?’

‘Just me. A homemade spirit board. Out in the animal graveyard at night, trying to convince this bastard to give me his name. I’d rather have my appendix out again without anaesthetic.’

Knowing Clint’s luck he’d end up summoning a demon, or three, and making things a thousand times worse.

Stark gave him a weird look.

‘It’s like paranormal 101,’ Clint said. ‘You don’t mess about with spirit communication. Have you never seen a horror movie?’

‘Yeah. And it seems to me like once you’re _in_ a horror movie, you’re fucked no matter what you do. Don’t see a lot of happy endings in horror movies.’

‘Wow. Thanks, that makes me feel so much better about my life right now. A+ encouragement there, Stark.’

He sat down, because his legs were aching and his thigh wound was itching like a motherfucker and it had been a really long day and no--no, there was no fucking way he was breaking down now, in front of his coworkers.

But it wasn’t like there was anywhere else he could go.

Before he’d have gone out to the barn, maybe pushed some weights or started working on one of his projects - but the inside of the barn felt like a set-up for a _Final Destination_ death scene. There had to be well over a half dozen different ways for him to die in there. Or he’d have gone out into the woods, to one of his practice areas and shoot his bow until his fingers were sore.

He could have talked to Natasha, but with so many people in the house nowhere felt private.

He leaned forward and put his head in his hands.

‘I didn’t mean…’ Stark said.

Clint tried not to laugh. Hearing Stark backtrack was a rare and wondrous thing, and he couldn’t even enjoy it right now.

‘It’s fine,’ he said, and he could hear how flat his own voice sounded. ‘I’m gonna leave now. Before you try to hug me or something to make me feel better.’

‘I wouldn’t dare, Barton.’

Clint forced a smile as he stood up. It was probably more of a grimace. He turned to look at Bruce before he left.

‘I know it wasn’t your fault.’

If he tried to say anything more he knew he would snap, would end up bawling or something equalling as embarrassing. He just needed Bruce to know that he knew that, at least.

\--

‘I thought everyone was asleep already,’ Steve said.

Clint didn’t jump, he’d known Cap was there.

‘Yeah, well apparently my body had different ideas. Too keyed up still,’ Clint said, taking a sip from his mug.

The moon was out, and the stars too. That was one thing which always freaked him out about cities - how bland and boring the night sky was. Like he’d stepped into some weird alternate dimension where the stars had died and all that was left was concrete and artificial light.

‘That better not be coffee,’ Steve said, gesturing at the mug.

‘Guilty. Hoping maybe it’ll tip the balance - y’know like that math thing? Two negatives make a positive or whatever.’

Steve smirked and shook his head.

‘Mind if I join you?’ he said, gesturing to the edge of the porch where Clint was sitting.

‘Be my guest. Can’t say I’ll be good company though, I get weird when I’m super tired.’

Cap sat down next to him.

Clint’s charm was still written on his arm.

‘Christ, how are your biceps bigger than mine? That’s so not fair,’ Clint muttered, hugging the mug to his chest. The heat had almost totally faded, which had been the main reason for getting the coffee in the first place. The only other options had been hot chocolate (too much effort) or Bruce’s tea (gross). Alcohol had been another option, but Clint wasn’t that stupid.

‘Why are you out here anyway?’ Steve asked.

Clint shrugged. At least he tried to. His injured shoulder had gone all stiff.

‘Felt like staring into the abyss for a while.’

Steve sighed.

‘There could be people at SHIELD who’d know--’

‘No. Absolutely fucking no’

Cap looked surprised, like he didn’t get it.

‘I may work for SHIELD, but it’s Fury I answer to. Trust’s the wrong word where Fury’s involved...but...eh, let’s go with trust. He went out on a limb for me when I joined, putting this place together. I owe him for that. There’s people at SHIELD who...well, to be frank, I wouldn’t piss on them if they were on fire.’

It felt kinda wrong to be sharing these sort of opinions with Captain America - who was loyalty and patriotism solidified - but Clint hoped that maybe Steve Rogers would understand.

‘They probably feel the same way about me. I remember a lot of people who weren’t too happy about me being there, especially at the start - felt I belonged elsewhere. I was lucky that I had Coulson in my corner.’

The memory stung. In his chest and the corners of his eyes.

Steve just listened, in silence, but somehow it was a supportive silence.

Clint looked out towards the trees. In the dark he could barely make out the broken trees which now marked the boneyard.

He sipped more of his coffee.

‘Y’know, I’m kinda glad you guys are here.’

Maybe he only said it in his head, because Steve didn’t respond, just stayed by Clint’s side in silence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I ended up googling pictures of the actors arms as reference for this. I feel like such a creeper...*shudders* Did not know that Jeremy Renner managed to break both his arms while filming a comedy though, so that was interesting.
> 
> Steve kinda got the short end of the stick in one of my other fics, so I'm righting the balance in this one.


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Basement time!  
> You know nothing good ever happens in basements.

‘Well that’s totally fucking subtle,’ Clint muttered.

A single fly buzzed about lazily before settling on one of the coyote’s eyes.

Laura made a noise of disgust.

‘I’ll clear it up before the kids come downstairs, babe,’ he said, moving away from the open backdoor and grabbing a garbage bag from under the sink.

The coyote had been left on the back porch for them to find, ripped open and with its guts hanging out. Clint didn’t think it was an accident that it was splayed out right across where he’d been sitting last night.

‘Need any help?’ Steve said.

The guy didn’t seem to need much sleep - he’d been the first one up in the Barton house since the day he’d arrived. Unlike Clint, who was desperately craving coffee and wishing he could just curl up and go back to sleep, he was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and ready to face the day.

‘Uh, yeah. If I scoop up the carcass and the...innards, can you try and wash the blood off the decking?’

‘Sure.’

Clint pulled out two pairs of rubber gloves from the cupboard under the sink as well.

‘I’m assuming you don’t want these back after I’m done?’ he said to Laura.

She shook her head.

Clint went back out, put the gloves on and grasped the coyote by the scruff of its neck. He tried to shove the guts back in, but as he lifted it a coil of intestine slipped out and hit the deck with a squelch.

The smell was the worst part though. That mix of shit and blood that Clint hated to say he’d smelled before - way too many times.

Clint dumped the body in the garbage bag before the rest of the guts followed suit.

He was glad he hadn’t had breakfast - wasn’t even sure he’d want it after this.

When the last of the chunks were cleaned up, Clint took the bag and headed around the side of the house to the basement door.

The shutters were stiff and the latch rusted to hell - they usually just used the inside door when they needed to use the basement, but Clint didn’t want to walk through the house and risk the smell sticking around in there. He got the shutter open and daylight poured in, illuminating the stairs and the incinerator.

He picked the bag up again and started down the steps.

It felt like a challenge. Like it was testing how far it could get. Now that the house was off-limits. Now that _Clint_ was off-limits.

He looked down at the fading symbols on his arm. He’d need to come up with a more permanent solution. If he had Nat spot him, maybe he’d risk going in the barn to get a few tools. Make some amulets. Enough for everyone.

He hit the last step and looked around.

It was one of the things on his to-do list - tidy up the basement. Since converting the attic into a spare room, all of the Barton's junk had ended up underground. There was a box full of baby things, bits of furniture which hadn’t quite fit, and even some of Clint’s archery gear, alongside the usual basement things. Clint had vague ideas of creating a proper utility room, moving the washer and dryer down here from the tiny little room upstairs. There’d be more space, although he’d have to do some work to make the basement a bit more inviting.

He slid open the door on the incinerator and moved to throw the bag and its contents inside.

Then the bag moved.

Of course Clint had been moving, so some of his motion had been transferred to the bag. But it wasn’t that. Clint felt it twist.

Like something inside thrashed.

Clint had handled the coyote. There was no way the thing was still alive.

His first thought was maybe a rat had gotten inside the corpse, had been stuffing its little rat face with some prime coyote meat when Clint picked it up.

But he’d have noticed, surely?

The side of the bag bulged outwards, and there was no fucking way that was a rat. Or the coyote.

Clint dropped the bag.

He could kid himself it was a tactical decision, retreating to a safer position, rather than the knee-jerk fear response it was.

He was supposed to be beyond that. A trained agent.

The bag twitched.

The neck flopped to one side - Clint hadn’t bothered putting a knot in it - and the wrinkles in the plastic began to spread apart. As something inside it moved. Towards the way out.

Clint didn’t dare take his eyes off the bag. He reached out, for the shelf next to him.

There had been arrows there.

He touched one. Slow. Trying not to make any noise as he separated it from the pile. The rustling of the bag covered it up.

Finally, something emerged from the plastic, into the light of day.

_You’ve got to be fucking kidding me._

Four fingers and a thumb touched the concrete, fingertips digging in to drag the hand that followed.

It was obvious that they didn’t belong to anything living. Ignoring the space limitations of the bag - and the fact that what it had contained had been a dead coyote just a few minutes ago - the skin was grey. Blotchy. Bruised.

Clint recognised a corpse when he saw it. Except this one apparently hadn’t got the memo about how corpses were supposed to act.

It was like looking at a spider - there was that same full-body shiver just under his skin. A weird, misshapen, fleshy spider.

With no eyes.

A wrist appeared out of the bag, and the hand moved wider. Groping across the ground. Definitely a man’s hand, with filthy, cracked nails covered in black grit.

Clint forced himself to stay silent as he moved closer.

This was what he did. It was his fucking job.

He knew he couldn’t let whatever was in that bag out - couldn’t run and leave it to _birth_ itself out of the garbage bag.

He gripped the arrow tight, picked his target and struck.

It didn’t bleed. Not like a living thing. There was a trace of black gunk around the arrow shaft, streaks of it left on the floor, but that was it.

There was no sound, other than the damp crunch as Clint had plunged the arrow in, but somehow Clint imagined it screaming.

In rage and in pain.

The hand shook, going rigid like Clint would expect - he’d shot plenty of people in the hand before.

He’d hoped it would withdraw back into the bag, that he could scoop it back up and fling it into the incinerator and flambe the fucking the thing right back to whatever hell dimension it had come from.

Instead he saw a second set of fingers edge beyond the black plastic. Creeping towards the other hand.

To try and pull the arrow out.

Not on his fucking watch.

Clint brought his foot down in a hard stomp, putting everything he had into it.

His foot should have sunk into a mush of coyote guts. Instead Clint felt the outline of a shoulder. He stomped again, hoping to hell the bag wouldn’t split.

He didn’t want to see whatever was forming itself inside the bag.

Didn’t know if he could take it.

He had to get it into the fire.

Clint bent down and picked the bag up.

The thing inside felt cold and solid and wrong. The shoulder ended, and there was nothing behind it. Not yet anyway.

The head was so close to the opening of the bag. Clint could see it thrashing, the arm flailing, trying to grab at him.

Clint wrestled the bag into the incinerator, slamming the head against the side before he managed to cram it all inside.

The hand made a final grab for him. Clint felt it brush his arm and he almost screamed as he reached for the door, trying to slam it shut. The hand caught the edge of the opening, the arrow getting in the way. Jamming it.

Clint grabbed the door handle, pushing and slamming it over and over until the arrow shaft shattered. The hand tried to change its grip, but Clint was quicker.

It fell back, and Clint finally got the door closed. He reached for the switch, hit it, and fell back with his head pounding.

He heard it knocking, from the inside, but only for a few moments.

\--

‘Honey, what was all that noise a--?’

Laura stopped when she saw him.

Clint wondered what he looked like in that moment - probably pale, definitely freaked out, and somehow, elated.

‘Babe. I, uh…’

Saw a ghost wasn’t the right way to describe it.

‘Something wrong?’ Steve said, poking his head in the backdoor. Damn supersoldier hearing.

Clint nodded, because he couldn’t speak to tell Steve that a lot was wrong with him right now. He’d just had a bag of dead coyote turn into a bag of dead _I-don’t-even-fucking-know_ right in front of him. He’d touched it. Wrestled with it. Consigned it to a fiery death.

‘Kinda hard to explain. I’ll be okay in a minute...just...fuck.’

He staggered over to the kitchen table and sat down.

It was way too early in the morning for this kind of bullshit.

‘We got coffee yet?’

\--

By the time Clint would have been able to talk about it, the kids were awake, downstairs and demanding to be fed. Clint was surprised when Tony and Bruce appeared, not from upstairs but from the dining room/lab.

‘Did you guys even sleep?’ Natasha asked.

‘Are you going to lecture us if we say no?’

Natasha smiled and shook her head. ‘Not worth it,’ she said.

‘Harsh. But fair. Y’know I could get used to this. Bacon, eggs, above average coffee.’

‘I made the coffee,’ Clint said.

‘Okay. _Drinkable_ coffee.’

‘Haven’t you built a robot that makes you breakfast yet?’ Clint said.

He could almost forget about the arm in the garbage bag. Everything felt so normal.

‘Daddy, your drawing’s gone all smudgy,’ Lila said.

At first Clint thought she must be talking about the seals on the walls, but when he looked down to where she was sitting she was staring at his arm.

He looked down at the faded markings, and there was indeed a smudge. The circle was broken, the bow and arrow at its edge gone completely and the symbols within deformed. It was like he’d taken a cloth soaked in alcohol to his arm and swiped downward through it.

He remembered the hand, grasping for him as he’d forced it into the incinerator. He remembered it touching him, just barely.

He felt sick. Wanted to run. But Lila was looking up at him, and it would frighten her so much if she saw her daddy scared.

‘Guess I need to draw it out again. Yours still okay, sweetie?’

Lila nodded, showing him her arm. The symbols were all still there, still perfect and crisp.

When Clint glanced up Natasha was looking at him. Of course she could spot it, could tell that inside he was shivering and shaking and wanting to scream. Natasha Romanov could smell fear, and he probably stank of it right now.

There’d been seals on the basement door, both of them. It shouldn’t have been able to get inside.

Clint knew that no security system was infallible, he’d broken into enough places in his time to know that.

He thought about the bag and the dead thing inside. He’d brought it over the threshold - and maybe that had been enough.

But it had gone in the fire, and Clint would check later and gather up the ashes and make sure they ended up far away from the house.

There was a cold feeling in his gut.

Lila was tugging on his arm, and he wanted to smack her hands away, before she touched where it had touched him.

‘Daddy, can I help draw?’

He didn’t understand what she meant at first, before she pointed at the seal on the wall.

‘Uh, sure. You won’t get bored? You gotta copy it out exactly the same.’

She gave him a look, like it was a dumb question and of course she knew what she was doing. She was a little kid - her world was still full of magic.

‘Alright, I’ll get the paper and pens after the table’s clear. I gotta do something else real quick first though.’

\--

‘What exactly is it you need me to do?’ Natasha asked, as they stood outside the barn.

Clint had hurriedly redrawn the seal on his arm before they stepped outside.

‘Just keep an eye on things. If anything starts to move, yell at me.’

He didn’t need much. A drill, some sandpaper, a hacksaw, a chisel and some varnish.

It felt like it took forever to find everything, and every creak made him stop and look around. When everything was in the bag, he darted for the door like it was about to slam closed on him.

Natasha gave him a look.

‘Are you going to tell me what happened earlier this morning?’

‘Can we talk about this inside?’ Clint asked.

It felt wrong to be this scared about just being outside.

But he was.

\--

Natasha had one hell of a poker face.

The only person he knew who could match it was Fury. And Clint had a feeling even Fury would have flinched when Clint told him about what had happened in the basement.

He ran a hand over the arm where it had touched.

‘If I hadn’t felt it, I’d have thought it was a hallucination,’ Clint said. ‘But it was real. If I don’t find a way to stop this son of a bitch soon…’

‘We will.’

Her hand was on his arm, gentle and grounding.

They were in her room, sat next to each other on the bed like they had after she’d punched Loki out of him.

‘I’m scared, Nat. Really, really scared.’

There wasn’t exactly a point in admitting it to her - she could smell fear, after all. But she was the only person he _could_ admit it to.

‘If I knew what it wanted…’ he said, not finishing the thought.

Because he would have done it. In a heartbeat. If only it meant freeing his family.

If it wanted him to trek out into the middle of nowhere and uncover its body, buried treasure, or some other secret which might prevent a wayward spirit from resting, then he’d go. If it asked him to kill someone, he’d grab his bow and go. If it wanted him, then he’d go without complaint.

But Clint got the feeling that whatever it wanted - or _needed_ \- wasn’t anything he was willing to give.

‘I should’ve never picked up that fucking phone. Should’ve never let her convince me…’ he muttered, dragging his hands down his face.

Natasha, who had heard all the stories about how Clint and Laura had met, smiled.

‘You’d be a very different person,’ she said. ‘You might even have taken that shot when you had it. Might not have made the same call.’

‘You saying Laura’s my ‘better half’? I guess that’s true. She could have done better, that’s for sure…’

Natasha elbowed him in the ribs.

‘Ow.’

‘Define ‘better’.’

‘Y’know. Handsome, successful. Doesn’t shoot people for a living. Spends more than a month at home at a stretch. Doesn’t miss the birth of his own daughter because he’s stuck watching for a fucking people smuggler on the outskirts Lahore. Uh, doesn’t make his wife give up her family and her old life and live in total secrecy in the middle of nowhere because if people knew who she was than they would hurt her. I could go on.’

Natasha rolled her eyes.

‘If you’re going to be like that then you can get out right now.’

There wasn’t any bite to her voice though. She’d heard it all before.

‘Sorry.’

There was a tapping at the door, and then it opened. Lila had to stand on her tiptoes in order to reach the handle, swinging into the room with the door.

‘Daddy, can we draw now?’

‘Yeah, sure, pumpkin.’

He got up, but then Lila ran across the room, to a big old antique armoire. She pawed at the side of it, pointing at the box on top.

‘Why d’you want the costume box, sweetie?’

Lila just kept stretching for it, as if by willpower alone she could grow the extra few feet she needed to reach the box.

Clint sighed, and went to get the box down.

It was full of bits and pieces of Halloween costumes, gathered over the years.

Halloween was one of Laura’s favourite holidays - it had sucked that she could no longer celebrate it the same way.

They’d taken the kids trick-or-treating a few times. On ‘Halloween road-trips’.

Clint remembered the first time.

Cooper had been a toddler. Laura didn’t want him to grow older and ask why the kids on tv got to go trick-or-treating when he didn’t.

They’d dressed him up as a skeleton, with Clint painting his face to resemble a skull, and then they’d driven up to Des Moines and found a random suburb.

New York hadn’t happened yet, so there was nobody to recognise him - even _after_ New York few people did - but Clint still would have felt more comfortable wearing a mask.

He’d tried, but the werewolf mask he’d bought had scared Cooper too much, so he’d had to resort to face paint too.

Laura had been a bit more creative.

She’d been pretty obviously pregnant, so she’d got a short, blonde wig and gone as Rosemary from _Rosemary’s Baby_.

It had been fun.

They hadn’t stayed long, because the crowds and all the costumes started to freak Cooper out, but the candy in the truck on the way home had smoothed things over.

He’d wanted to go again the next day, and had thrown a minor tantrum when he found out it was only once a year.

Clint put the box down and Lila started turfing through it, dumping the contents out on the floor as she looked for something.

Clint saw the skeleton onesie, the Rosemary wig. All went on the floor.

‘I hope you’re planning to tidy all that up,’ he said.

Lila glanced at him, like he was speaking an alien language and she had never heard of this ‘tidy-up’ before.

She made a noise when she found what she was looking for.

A witch’s hat.

It was one Laura had worn years before, so it was much too big. It swallowed her head when she put it on. She grumbled and tried to reposition it, but it kept slipping down onto her shoulders.

‘What are you trying to do, sweetheart?’ Clint asked.

‘Wanna be a witch,’ Lila mumbled.

Clint could have told her that she didn’t need the hat to be a witch - Clint had been managing just fine without a hat.

Although that wasn’t strictly true. Because there, in the bottom of the box, was another witch’s hat. The one Laura had shoved on his head their first Halloween together - a friend had dropped out on her and she’d needed a replacement. Clint didn’t remember volunteering, but he ended up in a hat, a cape and carrying a broom around for the rest of the night.

‘Gimme the hat for a second, sweetie. Think I can fix this.’

He borrowed a couple of Laura’s hairgrips, and managed to clip the hat in place.

‘Now, don’t go shaking your head around, or it’ll come off.’

Lila, of course, nodded. Clint had to readjust the hat again before they went downstairs.

\--

Clint had to show her how to do some of the symbols, but she got the rest of it.

He couldn’t talk her out of the glitter, but otherwise she was focused - tongue poking out the side of her mouth as she drew.

Laura came in, saw the glue and the glitter and the tree branch and the wood shavings. She raised an eyebrow at Clint.

‘Yeah, yeah. We’ll tidy up after ourselves,’ Clint said.

‘You better. That my hat?’

‘Yup. Lila here needed to borrow it.’

Laura smiled, fond and loving.

She came and draped herself over Clint’s shoulders, crossing her arms over his chest.

‘What are you doing?’

‘Making amulets. Figured you guys would prefer it to me drawing on you.’

She didn’t say anything, but Clint felt her cheek resting on the top of his head. She stayed like that for a few moments, watching him sand and file down a slice of wood until it was smooth and small.

He still had a lot of work to do.

\--

When he went to check on the incinerator, there was nothing but ashes left.

Clint wasn’t sure what he’d expected.

Maybe for the bag to still be there, whole and undamaged. Or for a message to be written out in the dust, or scratched into the walls.

It wasn’t a relief.

Just an absence.


	18. Chapter 18

When Stark tapped him on the shoulder his voice was quiet.

‘Think we’ve got something.’

\--

The lab was a mess.

Clint counted three plates, and half a dozen mugs. No wonder he’d had so much difficulty finding one for his coffee that morning.

There was a pile of pillows and blankets in one corner, and Clint had noticed that their actual beds hadn’t been slept in.

It was obvious neither Stark nor Bruce had managed to shave over the past week. Clint was just thankful they’d apparently remembered to shower.

‘Now, listen to this.’

Stark shoved a pair of headphones at him, and then sat back in an office chair that Clint was pretty sure he didn’t recognise.

‘We caught this out in the animal graveyard. Figured it would be the most active area, so we rigged up some stuff in the trees.’

Clint tried to get a read on him.

Besides tiredness - which was obvious - there was an excitement there. And something else.

Clint put the headphones on.

He heard the usual night sounds of the woods around his home. Only quieter. No animal noises. He heard insects, and the rustle of the wind, but nothing else.

Then a twig snapped.

The recording ended.

Clint took the headphones off and frowned.

‘Doesn’t sound like much to me,’ he said.

The twig snapping was weird, he’d give them that, but it wasn’t exactly paranormal.

Tony gave him an odd look.

‘Listen again.’

Clint did.

Again he heard the same rustling and crackling, the same chirping insects, and then the snap at the end. Clint took the headphones off and shrugged.

‘We recorded this two nights ago. We took extensive readings at the same time, and here’s all the atmospheric data.’

He showed Clint a Starkpad full of charts and numbers.

Clint remembered back to that night. Remembered opening up the window because it was stuffy - warm for the time of year. There had been no breeze to cool things down.

‘Listen closely to the background noise. Five seconds in is the clearest.’

No breeze. No wind. Nothing to move the leaves.

Clint listened hard.

And finally heard the voice.

There were no words, just the rhythm of a human - a man, Clint thought - muttering to themselves.

‘We’ve cleaned it up as much as we can. This was taken just with a prototype, but the next version should be able to pick things up with a lot more clarity. It’s pretty straight forward, now that I think about it, just took a bit more abstract thinking--’

Clint tuned him out.

He wasn’t one-hundred-per-cent sold on what he’d heard. If it hadn’t been Stark handing him the headphones he wouldn’t have believed it at all - would have dismissed it as a bullshit trick.

He couldn’t say for sure what he’d heard was a ghost - the world was weird, after all. It didn’t have to be the spirit of a dead man, mumbling in the night.

But he couldn’t think of anything else.

Clint handed the headphones back.

Stark looked at his expression.

‘I know. It’s creepy. Had to get drunk last night just to... _process_ it. I mean, it’s kind of a consolation that Bruce and I are doing something never before accomplished, but not much of one. That’s a typical Tuesday for me. I have to ask myself, if we get all the kinks ironed out and we can manage actual words, do I even want to hear them? Sleeping at night is hard enough as it is, without adding ghosts to it.’

‘I don’t have a choice,’ Clint reminded him.

\--

On Bruce and Stark’s next test they caught the sound of a rabbit screaming.

It was piercing. Stark pre-warned him but it still made him startle. One moment there had been nothing - just the flies and the crickets, and the _actual_ wind blowing through the trees this time. And in the next, the scream.

‘There’s something in the background, here,’ Stark said, tapping a monitor with a waveform on it. ‘But the scream pretty much masks it.’

‘Probably just the son of a bitch laughing at us,’ Clint muttered. ‘Did you find--?’

‘A new dead rabbit? Yeah.’

Clint sighed.

They still hadn’t heard it, over at the house, and that fact made Clint more nervous than listening to the poor animal’s death cries.

\--

The next test caught nothing. And the one after. Just that same eerie quiet night after night.

\--

Clint checked to make sure Laura was sound asleep before he got up out of bed.

It didn’t feel great, sneaking around in his own house like this. But if Laura knew what he was about to do she would have been livid.

He made it downstairs and to the lab where Bruce and Tony were already waiting. There, he changed into the clothes he’d stashed there earlier.

‘Sorry I’m late. Laura’s a pretty light sleeper, especially when she’s stressed out…’

Stark didn’t say anything, which seemed like a pretty good sign that he didn’t want to do this almost as much as Clint.

It was like something kids would do at a slumber party - except that what Clint and Stark were messing with was real. And it could hurt.

‘Ready?’ Clint asked, picking up a flashlight.

‘If I say no, do I get to stay here?’ Stark said, and it almost didn’t sound like a joke.

Clint knew he should probably say something encouraging - something Captain-like - but he had nothing.

Together they went around to the backdoor. Clint had made sure to oil the hinges the day before.

The darkness, as always, was breathtaking. It was cloudy, so no moonlight even. Clint turned on his flashlight and stepped out onto the porch.

‘Keep the beam low ‘til we get to the woods,’ he said, looking over his shoulder at Stark.

It had gone midnight already, but Clint doubted that was going to matter. It was the witching hour, not the witching minute after all.

Clint could probably have found his way even without the light - the smell was still pretty strong from all the carcasses. He’d need to get rid of those somehow, once all this was done.

Stark pointed out his and Bruce’s device, bracketed around a tree.

‘How close do we need to be?’ Clint asked.

‘About here’ll do. Bruce, you picking us up okay?’

Stark sat down on a felled tree - courtesy of the Bruce’s Hulk-out. Clint sat down next to him.

‘Bruce says we’re good,’ Stark said.

There wasn’t a portable version of Stark and Banner’s set-up yet - Clint didn’t doubt they could have one ready in a matter of days, but he hadn’t wanted to wait - so they were relying on Bruce to translate like a human JARVIS, direct to Tony’s ear.

If the ghost even decided it wanted to talk in the first place.

‘So, is there a ritual we have to do now or something?’

‘Uh, I was just planning on yelling and calling him an asshole until he shows up.’

Clint heard Stark snort.

‘Should’ve known. Did the gypsy teach you that one?’

‘Nah, worked this one out myself. You piss a guy off enough he gets stupid, lashes out even when he knows he shouldn’t.’

Clint shrugged.

‘Hey, asshole? You listening, ya dumbass dead guy?’ he said, raising his voice. He couldn’t shout full-on - he was already half expecting Steve to come out and ask what the hell he was doing - but Clint reckoned he didn’t need to.

The thing probably knew where they were already.

‘I want to know what your problem is. If you’ve got something to say, then now’s your chance ‘cus we’re listening.’

Stark swept his flashlight up, across Clint’s legs, and into the trees.

‘Nothing,’ he said, after a minute or so of silence.

Clint sighed. He hadn’t expected this to be quick, but he had hoped. The longer they were out here, the harder it was gonna be to sneak back into bed without Laura waking up and asking where the fuck he’d been.

‘Come on you sack of shit. Show yourself.’

_Ignore the fact that my pockets are full of salt right now._

‘You’ve clearly got something you want to say. Whispering to my kids all the time. Telling them fucked-up things they don’t deserve to hear. Why don’t you talk to me instead? Or is it that you can’t? Too chickenshit for it, is that it?’

Clint let the words hang in the air, turning to look at Tony who, in turn, was listening to Bruce. Nothing, again.

‘So, how did you die? Or are you one of those idiots who don’t realise they’re dead? If so, then I’ve got some bad news for you, buddy...Was it a fire? Smells a lot like smoke whenever you’re around. If that’s so, getting shoved in the incinerator must’ve really sucked for you. Not gonna apologise though. You deserved it.’

Another pause, another head shake from Stark.

‘I wonder what you were like alive. Pretty insignificant I reckon. Got a chip on your shoulder about something, that’s for sure. So, what was it? Lousy job? Mommy never love you enough? Small dick? Help me out here, or I’m just gonna think it was all of them and then some.’

Stark jolted, knocking into Clint. The arm holding the flashlight hit him in the chest in its hurry to sweep it along.

‘Ow, Tony, what the hell?’

Clint could hear his breathing, sharp and quick.

‘What happened? Did Bruce--?’

‘No. No. I...I saw…’

Clint saw the beam of the flashlight wavering as Stark’s hand shook. He glanced at the pool of light but saw only trees.

‘I...it was…’

Clint stood up, moving his flashlight in the same direction as Stark’s.

A hand grabbed his arm, hard enough to hurt.

‘Jesus, Barton. Do you have a deathwish?’ Stark said, trying to pull him back down onto the log.

‘Then quit babbling, and tell me what the hell you saw already.’

Clint couldn’t see Tony’s face, but he didn’t need it to know the guy was scared. And who could blame him. The Chitauri hadn’t exactly been pleasant to look at, but a single repulsor blast could knock them flat on their weird alien asses. Not so here.

‘Okay. Just, don’t go anywhere. Isn’t that the golden rule of horror movies - you don’t split up! Bad things happen when you--’

‘Stark.’

‘I saw a man. Alright. Just...a man. Looked like he’d been in an accident. Blood everywhere. And he was grinning, or--or baring his teeth and...holy shit. If that’s what your kids were seeing every night…’

He exhaled, shakily, into a laugh.

Clint scanned around some more with the flashlight, but couldn’t see anything.

‘I’m fine, Bruce. Barton’s ghost just tried to give me a coronary, that’s all. Joke’s on him since I’m pretty much heart attack proof,’ Stark said.

The last thing they needed was for Bruce to come running out here to see what was going on. Clint would definitely die this time if he had to run through the dark with a Hulk on his tail.

‘Don’t suppose he caught anything on the audio that time?’ Clint asked.

Stark shook his head.

‘Which way did it go?’ Clint asked.

‘Barton, you better not be thinking what I think you’re thinking…’

‘Which way?’

Stark gestured with his flashlight.

‘That way. He slunk off behind that big tree.’

Clint got up, not surprised when Stark got up too.

‘We’ll be out of range of the recorder,’ he pointed out, but didn’t try to stop Clint this time. ‘I just want it on the record that I think this is a dumb idea.’

_Well, that makes two of us._

Clint remembered trying not to laugh more than once, while watching a movie with Laura, as the curious protagonist crept ever closer towards an all too obvious jumpscare.

The irony was not lost on him.

Except it wasn’t so much curiosity as just plain weariness.

These spook and run tactics were really, _really_ getting on his nerves.

‘Clint...just stop a minute.’

Stark grabbed for his shoulder but Clint shrugged him off.

‘I think we should go back to the house.’

Clint wanted to argue, to carry on until…

...until what?

Until his flashlight gave out and left him in the dark. Until he was alone and lost and easy prey.

His grip tightened on the flashlight.

Stark was right. This was a dumb idea.

‘Yeah…’ Clint muttered. ‘Fine, let’s do that.’

His legs felt heavy, but he made them move, following on behind Tony as they headed back towards the treeline.

They were almost out of the trees when Stark stopped.

‘What do you mean ‘weird’, Bruce?’

A cold dread settled in his stomach, as he looked towards the house.

He was running before Stark managed to say anything else, sprinting across the damp grass. As he neared the porch he saw the hallway light, the one they always kept on, go out in the window above.

His shoulder collided with the door frame, the door slammed against the wall. He hardly heard it over the blood pounding in his head.

Barely a stop outside the dining room door, just enough for Bruce to say ‘the girl’s room’, before he took off again.

_Stupid, stupid, stupid._

He heard doors opening, questions being asked.

Lila’s door was open, her bedside light on and she was sat up with her hand still on the switch. Confused. Bleary-eyed

Then her head turned, towards the corner.

Clint saw the blood drain from her face.

‘Lila!’

_All my fault._

There was noise, but he couldn’t hear it - or couldn’t make sense of it. There was movement, to his right and his left, but it was all too far away.

His foot touched the floor in Lila’s bedroom. A rush of air behind him, a noise that plucked at every nerve as the door slammed shut.

Lila looked at him and her eyes were sparkling with tears.

‘Make him go away!’ she cried, as Clint dropped to his knees next to the bed and held her.

‘I will. I will, I promise, sweetie.’

Burning metal. Oil. Dead flesh. The smell drifted towards him.

Clint could hear the thing, breathing in shallow, crackling breaths like there was fire in its lungs.

‘Stay behind me, and shut your eyes,’ he told Lila, turning at last towards the corner.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was a slog to write. -_-  
> Had a touch of writer's block, and an idea drought and I'm pretty sure it shows.


	19. Chapter 19

It wasn’t fair.

That was the thought that kept going round and round.

It wasn’t _fucking_ fair.

Outlast him. That’s what Barney had said. It was the only way out they had, because he was bigger, stronger and meaner than them and there was nothing they could do about it. All they could do was outlast him.

And they had.

Or he thought they had.

Clint wanted to leap up and punch him, right in the jaw just like he’d fantasised about as a kid. But he had no idea if the punches would even connect.

And if they didn’t, if they passed straight through him and Clint fell over on his ass, then he’d be leaving Lila unprotected.

_Lila_.

His daughter was whimpering and holding onto the back of his shirt. As small and defenceless as he had been back then.

Clint swallowed, trying not to focus on the details of the thing in front of him. The shards of glass embedded in the face he’d hated so much, the way his chest looked wrong - probably from impact with the steering column - or the grin. God, the grin.

The phrase ‘rictus grin’ came to mind. But Clint wasn’t sure what it meant. He was sure it was something bad, something creepy.

When his dad was really, really angry - mad to the point of smashing up chairs and Clint could still feel the way his arm had broken while he’d screamed that he was sorry, praying that his dad would hear and would stop _fucking_ hurting him - he bared his teeth. Like a dog. It looked like a grin, but Clint, and his mom and brother, they all knew better.

When his dad grinned like that, you knew you were in for a world of hurt.

The thing that looked like his dad laughed. Sharp. Tight. Nothing a laugh should be.

Lila was the only thing which kept him from sobbing, from breaking down.

No matter what, he had to protect her.

‘You think this sorry ass if gonna keep you from getting what’s coming to you. You’ve been running yer mouth, ya little whore,’ it said, sneering.

Lila made a small sound, almost a moan. Clint could feel her shaking.

‘You don’t get to talk to her that way.’

‘Can’t stop me. It’s my business. Anyone tries to interfere with my business I’ll knock ‘em on their ass.’

Clint went to slip a hand into his jacket pocket, still full of salt.

His dad clamped a hand on his wrist.

‘Trying to get the jump on me, boy?’

Clint hadn’t seen him take a step, but now he was in front of him. How the hell he didn’t puke or pee his pants he had no idea. The stench was so thick. He could smell the grave, the soil, on his breath. There was a stinging sensation against Clint’s neck, as the amulet string snapped and the piece of wood dropped onto the carpet.

Harold Barton squeezed Clint’s wrist, so hard Clint felt the bones creak.

‘You can’t do shit to me now.’

The panic shot up and down him like electricity, the fear not far behind. But he wasn’t that same kid from before. Wasn’t small or weak anymore.

‘Let go now. Or I’ll make you,’ Clint snarled. There was a lifetime of anger there - anger he hadn’t been able to harness, or direct. He’d barely manage to get one blow in before his dad’s fist would knock him back.

‘You can’t do shit to me.’

‘Harold Barton.’

The effect was instant.

A shudder ran through the dead man’s form. There was a look of confusion on his face. The pressure let up on Clint’s arm. He took advantage - grabbed a handful of salt and threw it.

There was a hiss, like cold water hitting a hot pan. The thing shrunk back, moving like smoke and the sound it made was one of fear and pain.

It was a _good_ sound.

‘This isn’t your home. It’s mine. And this isn’t your family. So get the hell out.’

It snarled at him. The salt seemed to eat at it like acid, made it harder to keep its shape. The shirt and pants were gone, leaving only dead skin and a skeletal form. Its face was like a nightmare come to life, all blackhole eyes and gaping mouth.

It tried to reach for Clint, and Clint let it.

_Not scared. Not anymore._

He threw another handful of salt.

‘Get out. Leave my daughter, my son and my wife alone. Leave my house, and my land.’

More salt, and the thing _screamed_.

The edges of it bubbled and Clint saw a wisp of smoke, leading away from the figure and back towards the window.

Another scattering of salt and Clint saw a thick column of greasy black smoke. It stained the wall as it was sucked towards the window.

The scream became one of rage, and the smoke twisted, part of it forming into an arm. It slammed against the wall, against the papers Clint had taped there, staining them all with black. It spread outwards, like an anchor, and the palm of the hand stuck like a tick.

There were crayons on Lila’s desk.

Clint grabbed one, stumbling to his feet. Lila tried to grab at him, to pull him back. He looked at his daughter, and then back at the thing trying its damnedest to keep a hold on his house.

He shrugged his jacket off and gave it to her.

‘There’s salt in the pockets. He tries to come near you you throw it at him, alright? His name is Harold Barton, and now you know it he has to do anything you say. But for now, I need you to stay right here.’

She just nodded, too shocked and scared to question him. To question why, if the name was so powerful, it was still here holding on even after Clint had said it out loud.

‘Daddy…’ she mumbled, as he turned around.

The hand came unstuck as soon as Clint got close.

Clint put the crayon to the wall and it wrapped around his neck. Hard, pressing on his windpipe, on his jugular.

So maybe he didn’t have time to draw out anything complicated.

But he could think of one thing he could manage before he passed out.

A straight line, and a curved line, ends flicking upwards. A straight line with a triangle at one end. Three short lines on either side at the other.

Aimed at the arm trailing from the window.

Clint felt the grip slacken, no longer the stranglehold it had been. But it didn’t let go.

‘Stop hurting my daddy!’

A handful of salt hit him in the face.

The hand released him, right as another tiny fistful of salt brushed his nose.

‘Go away! Go away!’ Lila said, with his jacket draped over her like a cloak. Her hands dove into the pockets, quick like a sharpshooter, coming up with fistfuls of salt which she flung at the band of smoke.

She let the salt fly until the thing was backed right up to the window.

As another handful pattered against the windowpane, the last wisp of smoke was sucked out into the night.

Clint slumped down against the wall.

Lila stood, staring at the window, poised with a fistful of salt and her shoulders heaving under the weight of the jacket.

Clint heard splintering wood and felt a thud reverberate through the floorboards, looking around to see Lila’s door busted off its hinges with Steve lying on top of it.

‘Barton, you okay?’ he said, pushing himself up off the door.

Clint nodded, feeling the ache in his neck.

_No. No, I’m not._

The rest of the household clambered in over the remains of the door.

‘What happened?’ someone, maybe Laura, asked.

Clint opened his mouth and felt bile rush to his throat. He shut it before he puked over himself, over Lila’s floor and the damn room needed enough work now without adding vomit to it.

He managed to get upright, managed to push passed all the people crowding and demanding to know what was going on. Even managed to lock the bathroom door before he hurled his guts up into the toilet bowl.

He could feel where the bruises would form, and how had he not noticed how similar it all felt? The calluses in all the right places. The finger which didn’t quite bend right on account of an old break. The way he dug his thumb in, trying to make it hurt as much as possible.

He thought of Cooper, and the bruises, and his head throbbed with the hurt and the anger. He had done everything he could to give his children a loving and safe home. And then that bastard had...had…

The stain on the wall. He’d have to strip off the wallpaper and paste new stuff on instead. He needed to see what damage Steve had done to the doorframe, and if the door itself was still salvageable or not.

There was a knocking on the bathroom door. Steve’s voice again.

The last people Clint wanted to see were his teammates right now, but if he didn’t answer Steve would probably just bust this door down too. Maybe they thought he was possessed or something.

He reached up from the floor and pulled back the latch, letting them into the room.

‘Clint?’

He was surprised to see Laura, thought she would be with the kids.

She crouched down in front of him and touched his face.

Aware of the audience, Clint raised a hand to his head and signed _father_.

Laura’s eyes widened. Too stunned for words.

He heard protesting from outside in the hallway - sounded like Lila. The next instant she was in the bathroom with them, having weaved through the Avengers' legs.

She didn’t say anything as she laid her head on his chest, still wearing his jacket. She hugged him tight.

‘He’s gone. The bad man’s gone, Daddy. It’s okay.’

He tried to disguise the sob as a sniff. He wrapped an arm around her.

Cooper was the next in, slipping passed whatever babysitter had been assigned.

He wanted to know what everyone else wanted to know - what had happened?

‘We got rid of it,’ Clint said. ‘Banished its ass someplace else.’

‘Wait...how? You said we needed--’

Stark, of course, asking questions.

‘Doesn’t matter,’ Clint said, sharp as flint and hoping Stark would get the message to shut the hell up.

Clint got a look, a _you better believe we’re talking about this later_ kind of look, but Stark did indeed shut up.

\--

Lila and Cooper slept in with Clint and Laura, huddled between them in the bed. Lila hadn’t asked the question he’d feared - why the ghost shared their last name? Too exhausted perhaps. But the question would come, Clint was certain. And when it did, he’d have a simple choice. Lie, or tell the truth.

He wanted badly to talk to Laura, but the kids were right there and if they woke up they would hear every word.

Laura got his attention.

_Stop_ , Laura signed. _Rest_.

_Can’t_ , Clint signed back. He tried to tell her how he felt, but everything ended up jumbled and he couldn’t find the words.

The one thing he managed clearly was _It’s not fair_ , before tears threatened to flow.

_I’m not talking about this now_ , he signed, wiping his eyes on his t-shirt.

_Alright. Try and sleep._

\--

Clint stared at the stain in Lila’s room.

He’d swept all the salt off the floor - at least the bits which hadn’t got stuck in the gaps between the floorboards.

As he’d done that, he’d found the breach.

A plastic horse on Lila’s windowsill, one hoof breaking the line of salt. There was no way of knowing if it was accidental - if Lila had moved the toy herself, or if his dad had had something to do with it. Working away, increment by increment.

Steve had offered to help clear up the room, maybe feeling guilt for the busted door, but Clint had said no.

He didn’t sense Natasha until she was right up behind him.

‘You’ve been staring at the wall for the past eleven minutes. I’ve been counting.’

_Shit._

Clint rubbed his eyes.

‘Are you going to talk to me about this?’ Natasha said, sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of him.

He shrugged.

‘Not much to tell. My dad was an abusive asshole. You know this already.’

‘Which is why I know having him come back is going to fuck you up. Don’t make me tattle on you to SHIELD. You know they’ve over a dozen shrinks who’d love to be the one to get you to open up about your daddy issues.’

Clint sighed and looked down at the floor.

‘Just s’not fair, y’know. If it was just me he’d come back to haunt that’d be one thing but...he went after my kids, Nat. They didn’t do anything wrong, they didn’t do anything to him but he still tried to hurt them. It’s not their fault they--’

‘Barton. It’s not your fault either.’

‘It’s my fucking blood. And I gave it to them.’

She gave him her best ‘Barton, stop being stupid’ look.

‘So, you should have held off on breeding just in case your abusive father decided to pay you a visit from beyond the grave.’

‘You know what I mean.’

‘Pretend I don’t. Explain it to me.’

He gave her an exasperated look.

‘They don’t deserve to have to deal with all of my shit. They didn’t get to choose this--’

He was still getting the look.

‘This? You mean a house, with two loving parents who would go through hell for them, with a team of superheroes just one call away if they’re ever in trouble?’

There was an urge to stick his tongue out at her. He made the sensible decision to suppress it.

‘I couldn’t protect them,’ he mumbled. Like how he hadn’t been able to protect himself all those years ago.

_Or Mom._

‘Clint.’

It was the gentleness that caused the last thread to snap, and Clint was actually annoyed at her for it even as he sobbed against her shoulder, because he knew she’d done it on purpose. He tried to tell her that she was an asshole, that it was cheating.

‘I know,’ she said, holding him until it stopped.

\--

‘Daddy, you have to wear this.’

Lila toddled in, holding up the witch’s hat Laura had shoved on his head years ago. She was already wearing hers, and her mother must have clipped it into her hair for her.

‘Uh, okay, sweetie.’

He crouched down so she could put it on him, and then he handed her a second brush.

‘You remember how to draw it, right?’

She nodded.

‘Alright, you go low, I’ll go high.’

\--

Laura helped putting the new wallpaper up.

She smiled when she saw the seals, the small one down by the skirting board and the bigger one in the centre of the wall.

‘Is she going to be holding out for a Hogwarts letter now?’

‘Gee, I hope not. But we’ve got a few years before the disappointment for that one hits.’

‘He’s gone for good right?’

It was the question which had been stuck in Clint’s mind for the last two days.

‘Kids seem to think so.’

The change had been obvious. Clint hadn’t realised how little laughter there had been in the house for the past few months - they were outside now, playing tag with Steve, Nat and Tony, with Bruce keeping an eye from the porch.

She touched his arm before she seemed to remember the wallpaper paste all over her fingers.

‘Shit, sorry,’ she said. She opted for hugging him instead, leaning into his shoulder. ‘You’re alright,’ she said, soft and soothing and somehow exactly what he needed to hear.

He hummed in response.

‘So, exactly how good is Steve’s super-hearing?’

Her tone was low and playful. Clint recognised it well.

‘Well, I guess if next time he sees us he’s blushing like crazy, then we’ll know.’

She smiled and kissed him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...I aint done with Clint yet. *evil smirk*


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is way too short for how long it took me to post it up. I seem to have come to one of those creative sinkholes in life where I have all the ideas and none of the motivation. I might just be having a quarter-life crisis tbh. -_-

‘Yeah, everyone’s fine. No major injuries. Couple of scrapes and bruises. And, babe, you’ll be proud of me - no concussion! See, I can manage it sometimes.’

Clint stood on the balcony near the top of Avengers Tower, leaning on the railing with his phone to his ear.

‘I’ll be home the day after tomorrow. Still a few things to tie up here - and we’re having a movie night. I know! Steve suggested we do a few more team bonding exercises. Yeah, and ‘cus Tony’s an asshole we’re watching _Blair Witch Project_. Seriously, he won’t stop with the witch jokes. I ask him for a lift to the top of this building, he asks me if my broomstick’s in the shop. I had to threaten to curse him to get him to give me the damn lift.

‘Yeah, love you too. I better get back inside before all the food’s gone. Are the kids asleep already? Alright. I’ll see you all soon. Bye.’

\--

Clint kinda wished he’d argued harder for a different movie.

He was pretty sure he’d watched it before, but something about the woods, about the woman unwrapping a cloth and finding a bloody tooth, unsettled him. Much more than a movie was s’posed to. It sparked memory of bones melting into soil, of shapes forming behind black plastic.

Even listening to Tony trying to explain the idea of ‘found footage’ films to Thor, who seemed to think that meant they were real, didn’t make him feel any better.

Clint leaned into Natasha. He shut his eyes, was tempted to take his hearing aids out too but that would draw attention.

Pretend to sleep. That was his plan. Hope for no flashbacks, because they sucked and he’d had to deal with enough of them already. He wasn’t new to the PTSD game.

Natasha didn’t seem to care that he was grabbing her arm, using it to ground himself.

The movie ended, with Thor still demanding explanations.

There was a vote on the second movie of the night. Natasha suggested _Saw_ , but Clint vetoed it. Her commentary was easily worse than anything on screen. He’d learned never to watch torture porn with Natasha Romanov. Bruce put forward the original _Halloween_. Clint wanted something trashy and 80’s. Steve apparently had no strong opinions - horror didn’t really seem to be his genre - while Tony was still pushing the witch theme with a string of lurid 70’s titles which he’d had JARVIS search out.

‘ _Blood Orgy of the She-Devils_? Are you fucking kidding me? Tell me you just made that up, no way is that a real movie.’

But it sounded like trash and, being from the 70’s, had a high chance of female nudity. Clint didn’t complain too much.

He laughed a lot - it was hard not to - and he was on his way to forgetting the chill which had settled under his skin.

When Blood Orgy finished they watched another of JARVIS’s finds.

‘And there goes the dress,’ Clint said, during yet another Inquisition-style torture scene. ‘You better not be getting any ideas from this Stark.’

‘So, you’re telling me you don’t have a mysterious mark gifted to you by your lord and master Satan hidden somewhere under your clothes?’

‘Are you planning to go looking?’

‘That an invitation?’

Natasha smirked at them.

‘Only if we get to film it. I know certain people who’d pay a lot for that sort of thing. Not as much as they’d pay for Steve and Tony, maybe, but still…’

‘What people?’ Clint asked.

‘Your wife, for a start.’

Tony managed to inhale part of his drink. Steve had to slap him on the back to get him to stop choking.

Clint knew Nat and Laura were drinking buddies, in a sense. Mostly they drank around the house, after the kids were in bed, but they’d gone out a few times while Clint was home. Clint was confident that even in the roughest dive they could find, Nat would keep Laura safe.

He hadn’t stopped to consider what they might talk about.

He made a note to ask later about any other sexual fantasies Laura might have divulged to Natasha.

‘And we've got a Demonic orgy!’ Tony said, clapping and pointing at the screen. ‘Man, we should make bingo cards for these movies. Or, like, a drinking game.’

\--

It was almost three AM before they wound it down.

The non-insomniacs on the team were yawning, and Clint needed to be in a decent state to drive home in a few hours.

Someone flicked off the tv.

Clint froze.

There was another person reflected in the black of the tv screen.

He knew he wasn’t the only one who saw it, because Stark jumped off the couch and swore.

Clint actually saw the moment the figure behind him disappeared - as Stark turned around - but he’d had time enough to get a good look. To know.

‘Clint…’

Nat had her hand on his arm, tone of her voice telling him she was worried. Worried? About wh--...

Maybe about the noise he was making, or the way he was shaking.

‘Can’t...can’t...he _can’t_.’

He could hear Stark shouting at his AI, but he couldn’t concentrate enough to make out the words. He could hear the fear though.

And then the screen was back on, with a security camera view of the couch and all the Avengers. With his dead dad standing right there behind him. JARVIS scrolled back through the footage. One hour. Two. The whole time Clint had been sat there, laughing sprawled out next to Natasha, his dad had been standing behind him, not moving. Or barely moving. A snap between one frame and the next, and his dad was facing the camera.

Stark didn’t deal with mediocre shit, so the image was clear. Enough for Clint to see the grin on his father’s face.

Nat was shaking him, but he couldn’t--couldn’t focus. Couldn’t hear anything over the pounding in his head.

He shoved her and ran.

Didn’t know if she fell, if she was hurt--

_It’s Nat, she’ll be fine._

\--just needed to get out. Now.

He didn’t hear anyone coming after him, no one on his heels ready to tackle him and drag him back.

He’d taken off his shoes hours ago, so he could put his feet on the couch without Stark getting too pissy, and his socks slipped over the fancy, modern floors.

When he got to the room he usually crashed in when he was here, he slammed the door behind him. His hand fumbled for a lock that wasn’t there before he thought to ask JARVIS to do it.

His head was pounding. Blood booming in his ears like angry footsteps down a carpeted hall. It wasn’t safe to stop, not yet.

You were s’posed to hide, when Dad was on the warpath. And Clint did. Until he couldn’t anymore. Too mad and disgusted with himself. Because Mom couldn’t hide. And while there were times when he felt that maybe he hated her, for what she _hadn’t_ done more than anything else, he hated hearing her cry more.

But Mom wasn’t here. Because Dad had killed her when he wrapped his truck around a tree. He was the only one left.

And all he could do was hide.

\--

Clint tried to slow down his breathing.

If he kept panting, then Dad would hear him.

He covered his mouth, drawing his legs up towards his chest and trying to make himself as small as possible.

There hadn’t been any space under the bed, so all that had left was the closet.

It was mostly empty, and although Clint tried he knew he wasn’t hidden good enough. As soon as Dad opened the door he’d see him.

And then it would be bad.

Because Clint had tried to get rid of him. Had tried to kill him.

Dad knew how to hide a body. He’d told them so. He had everything he needed in the shop, enough to break someone down into such little bitty pieces you wouldn’t even know they were a person to begin with.

And Clint had fucked up bad this time. So, so bad. Maybe this time when Dad said he’d skin him...maybe he’d really mean it.

Just thinking about it made him want to cry. He couldn’t breathe. If he breathed then it would be a sob, and sobs were loud.

He tried to use his nose, but it was starting to get blocked up.

Maybe if he said he was sorry…

_Stupid. Stupid. When the hell has that ever worked?! Haven’t you heard Mom crying it, begging at his feet while he just drew back his belt for another strike._

_And she’s useful too. She’s gotta purpose._

__

_Unlike you_.

__

Footsteps.

__

‘No use hidin’’

__

Dad’s voice sounded strange - crackling, gurgling. Like there was something stuck in his throat.

__

‘Just makin’ this worse on yerself.’

__

A part of Clint wanted to go out there, to get it over with. Because waiting like this was torture in itself.

__

_You know you’ll change your mind if you go out there though._

____

‘Got five seconds, boy. Five.’

____

Clint took his hand away from his mouth, raised his arm up instead.

____

‘Four.’

____

Bit down before the whimper could come free. The pain was sharp, helped him focus.

____

‘Three.’

____

He couldn’t tell where Dad was. But as long as it was on the other side of the door then Clint was okay.

____

‘Two.’

____

Wait for him to pass out for the night. Then he could come out, he’d be--

____

‘One.’

____

Smell of blood. Everywhere.

____

In the dark he can see a shape, darker than the surrounding space, looming in front of him.

____

‘Time’s up.’

____

A cold hand grabbed his arm.

____

Clint screamed.

____


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The whump factor is extremely high in this one - probably why it ended up being so long.  
> Also, I didn't realise until I was doing a bit of research during the last chapter that Clint's dad is actually a butcher - like, holy shit, horror writers' dream right there and I didn't bloody realise. It would have given me loads of emotional baggage to play with in my cannibal fic. >_<

Waking up felt like a mistake.

The lights were too bright and when he tried to raise his arms pain spiralled through them.

‘Shit. JARVIS, bring the lights down a bit.’

‘Clint, try not to move just yet.’

He recognised these voices.

‘Clint.’

Another voice. Female. And somehow he felt safer. More able to breathe.

‘I don’t think it’s broken, but we’d need an x-ray to be sure.’

The talk of x-rays made panic spike in his chest.

X-rays meant doctors. Doctors meant money.

He tried to shake his head, and that was a mistake too.

It took almost a minute for the nausea to die back down.

Something was wrong, badly wrong.

‘Clint, try opening your eyes again now.’

The woman again. Clint did what she said.

For a few moments things were blurry, but then he made out a shock of red hair. Pale skin. A mouth he knew how to read.

‘Nat…?’

He moved his arm again as he tried to sit up, hissing at the pain.

‘Don’t need x-rays,’ he mumbled. ‘’M fine.’

Rather than push him back down on the bed, which would have made the panic spike again, she wrapped an arm around his middle and helped lift him upright.

Clint winced at the feeling in his ribs.

He blinked and looked up - at the people crowding around. His teammates.

_Because Dad’s dead. He’s dead._

‘Wh-what happened?’

There was no immediate answer.

‘You were attacked,’ said a tall, blon-- _Thor. His name is Thor_. ‘By a revenant from the spirit realm.’

Clint looked around at the others, but no one contradicted him.

‘And we don’t know yet that that arm isn’t fractured, so just...stop moving it,’ Bruce said, wincing and looking like he wanted to run the other way, but couldn’t.

‘I’ll get a doctor up here,’ Stark said, leaving the room.

Clint flinched.

‘He was standing behind me.’

He wasn’t sure he meant to say it out loud, but it came out anyway.

‘The whole time...he didn’t...he didn’t go away.’

The panic came back, and it wasn’t so much a spike as a jackhammer.

‘It didn’t _work_.’

Natasha put a hand on the back of his neck and gripped tight. It was more reassuring than he would have liked to admit.

He glanced to his right, to the open closet and he shuddered.

‘Tried to hide. Found me anyway.’

He wanted to curled up, with his knees to his chest but it hurt too much. His left forearm, the one his da--no, the ghost had grabbed, was red with a freshly forming bruise. Clint could already tell it would take the shape of a palm and fingers.

It looked bigger than it should be, wrapping right around his arm.

But that made sense, sorta?

Dad had always been bigger than him.

‘This spirit...it is your father?’

Clint looked at Thor, answering with a short nod.

‘And were the funeral rites properly observed at his passing?’

‘I don’t fucking know. I was eight and glad he was dead,’ Clint shouted. He hadn’t meant to. Thor was probably only trying to help - weren’t Asgardians big on magic? Like _Loki_. He managed not to shudder.

‘If that was the problem, why would he only appear now?’ Natasha said.

Thor seemed to consider it, still giving Clint a look. Clint thought maybe he knew what Thor wanted to ask - if he could call his brother to consult or not. As if Clint would ever be able to trust his help, even if Loki gave it.

‘If a man’s grave is disturbed...then his spirit may become restless.’

‘Haven’t been near the bastard’s grave. Don’t even know where it is.’

Thor looked pained, and of course he had been the only one not to hear the grisly details of Clint’s less than ideal childhood. Clint got the feeling that hating your own father enough to not even know about his resting place was probably a taboo in Asgardian society. Clint couldn’t find it in himself to care.

Which was when he thought about Laura. And the kids.

‘Nat, if he’s back here--’

His breathing was too fast again.

‘If he...if…’

Nat understood.

‘Clint, I’ll call them. Okay, stay where you are.’

Clint shook his head, moving to try and get off the bed and follow Nat as she left.

Steve put an arm in front of his chest and stopped him.

‘Clint, stay still. You might have internal injuries…’

He didn’t have the breath left to argue, just shot a glare Cap’s way.

If they were hurt, he’d never be able to forgive himself. It wouldn’t matter that his dead dad was using him as a punching bag again. Clint would go ahead and let him, if Laura and the kids were hurt.

He strained to hear Nat’s voice, but she was too far away.

Instead he looked at Cap, trying to gauge if he could hear Nat’s side of the conversation.

Or if the phone was just ringing on unanswered.

He was about to make another break for freedom when Nat came back.

She gave him an ok sign the moment he saw her, and his shoulders sagged in relief.

‘They’re fine.’

‘You’re sure?’

He looked into her face, but there was no sign of deception there.

She nodded.

‘Laura went and checked on the kids. They’re asleep in their beds. They’re all safe.’

Clint snorted. Safe was relative, especially when the thing after you disregarded most of the rules of physics. It didn’t matter that Harold Barton wasn’t painting the walls with his grandkids’s blood right this second, because he could be doing it the next.

‘You need to go, Nat. You need to go be with them, to keep them safe.’

Natasha shook her head. And Clint wasn’t sure if she was saying she wouldn’t go, or that she wouldn’t be able to keep them safe even if she did.

‘They’re fine.’

‘But he could be back there now!’

Steve had a hand on his knee, and Clint knew if he tried to run Cap would pin him down. For his own good.

A shiver ran down his spine.

‘Please Nat.’

Her expression barely changed, except it did just a little. Became softer. To everyone else she probably looked just the same, but he saw it. Like he saw the look of discomfort on Bruce’s face before he apologised and left the room.

Too stressful.

Clint understood.

‘Listen to me. They’re fine. Clint, I don’t think...I don’t think you need to worry about them. I think the house is safe. Something else is going on here.’

He wanted to yell at her that she didn’t know that - _couldn’t_ know that.

‘I fucked up. Did something wrong...or-or maybe--’

She put a hand on his shoulder, gentle but firm.

‘Clint, it reacted to the things you did. You pushed it out of the house.’

‘But maybe I didn’t. Maybe he just pretended it hurt him...so he…’

‘And if that’s true, then what exactly would I be able to do to protect Laura, Lila and Cooper?’

Clint didn’t answer.

Natasha gestured at the others to leave the room. Thor gave him a look Clint couldn’t quite work out - maybe disapproval or perhaps just concern - as he left.

When they were gone Natasha climbed up onto the bed and sat next to Clint.

‘What did you tell Laura?’ Clint asked.

‘That you had a panic attack. Like you had after that crap in Nairobi. You needed to hear that Laura and the kids were okay so you could calm down.’

Clint remembered.

Remembered being fucked up. The dehydration and the drugs culminating in hallucinations he’d only barely managed to forget. Of Laura and Cooper (there was no Lila at that point) dead and rotting, split open with their guts hanging out and staring at him with milky eyes..

Nat got him out, but the hallucinations stayed a while, and even once they were gone Clint would still wake up sometimes with a desperate fear clawing at his chest that his wife and child were dying, somewhere, at that moment, and he wouldn’t be able to get to them in time.

Sometimes he’d had the wherewithal to call them himself, but other times Nat, if she was there, would call for him. Would let him know everything was okay.

‘She’s gonna think I’ve relapsed,’ he said. His voice sounded flat.

‘I thought you’d prefer that to telling her about the ghost.’

Clint nodded. If Nat had told Laura the truth, then she’d be panicked - would be worried about Clint, and the kids and herself.

This way, she only had Clint to worry about.

‘Maybe it’s me...maybe he’s haunting me…I can’t go home like this, Nat. I can’t make Laura do this again.’

‘Clint, we’ll figure this out.’

He wanted to believe her, he really did.

\--

Bruises. Lots of bruises but no broken bones was the assessment after almost an hour of poking and prodding.

Clint could see that the doctor Stark had dug up really wanted to ask why she was there. Why Clint looked like he’d walked out of a commercial for domestic abuse.

He was just glad the bruise on his arm hadn’t darkened to the point where you’d be able to tell right away it was a handprint.

As he sat there in the med lab, answering the questions she asked but otherwise quiet, he saw his teammates hovering.

Nat was sat next to him - a vague air of threat to her presence. Maybe she wouldn’t be able to strangle his dead dad with her thighs exactly, but he felt a hell of a lot better with her there.

Steve and Tony were deep in conversation, out of his earshot, and Clint was pretty damn sure that they were talking about him. Steve’s back was to him, but he’d seen his name on Stark’s lips, even with that evil goatee of his making things difficult.

When Thor got involved Clint gestured to Natasha to go and break them up, or at least get them to talk about him to him. They weren’t in high school - not that Clint had experienced high school, except through the medium of teen television dramas. Besides, he had enough of being talked about behind his back, by people who thought he wouldn’t find out, at SHIELD. He didn’t need it here too.

They stopped, until the doctor was gone and Clint’s arm was wrapped up, and then Steve came up and apologised.

Clint didn’t like the look on his face. Too close to pity.

Nat hadn’t told him what he’d looked like when they’d found him, but Clint could imagine himself curled up, fetal, whimpering like the little kid he’d been decades ago. Or maybe he’d been flailing at something that wasn’t there, and Steve had had to restrain him.

‘You working on a plan or something?’ Clint asked.

At least they’d seen it. At least he hadn’t had to deal with them thinking he was losing his mind this time.

‘Thor suggested--’

‘No Asgardians,’ Clint said. And it felt kind of racist but just thinking about Thor’s brother made him remember the blue light and the cold touching his chest, spreading out through his veins and the calm and the feeling of someone else with him inside his head.

He shook his head.

Steve carried on.

‘He suggested trying to appease the spirit--’

Clint barked out a laugh, and then clenched his fist against the pain shooting out from his ribs.

‘He doesn’t deserve fucking appeasement,’ he snarled, and Steve actually looked shocked. Clint had been told more than once - one time actually by Natasha - that he had a serious case of ‘resting murder face’. Clint could only guess what he looked like when he actually wanted to murder someone.

‘And what if his idea of appeasement is me dead? Should I just roll over and die? Hug it out and go play catch in the afterlife? Thor doesn’t know my fucking dad - doesn’t know what it was like! My brother told me--he told me...we couldn’t beat him, all we could do was wait for the son of a bitch to die. We were too young, too _weak_ to do anything else. And then he did...b-but the orphanages and the group homes weren’t...weren’t any better. L-least at home we had Mom. I-I know she loved us - maybe not enough to leave, or maybe she was just too weak like us - but at the orphanage we didn’t even have that.’

He pushed the heels of his palm up to his eyes to try and stop the tears before they came. His left arm thrummed with light pulses of pain and he felt sick at just how much had come out of his mouth.

He was just fucking glad he couldn’t see Steve - Captain America - hit with the realisation of what a godawful mess his teammate was. Clint couldn’t decide which was worse - disappointment or pity.

‘It was my fault. I wished he was dead, all the time.’

‘Clint.’

Natasha’s voice was like an anchor.

‘I can’t do this, Nat,’ he moaned. ‘Can’t do this.’

‘Steve, give us a minute.’

Clint heard footsteps, more shuffling around the door where Thor and Stark were probably looking on, and the door shut.

And then Natasha was hugging him.

For all their casual intimacy, hugs were rare between them, especially hugs like this. It was almost a confirmation of just how much of a mess he was.

She murmured something soft and gentle in Russian, and Clint called her a bitch in that same language because she was doing the same thing she’d done when Clint had thought it was over. Making him cry like she was lancing a blister, draining all the bad emotions out. And Clint hated it. Crying was weak, and childish. And he knew Nat would give him a look if he said that to her, would tell him crying was part of being human.

Nat didn’t cry. Trained out of her too young. Sure, she could fake it. Could give you different kinds of tears for any situation, completely on demand, but it wasn’t the same. Clint thought maybe she was jealous.

‘We’ll figure this out,’ she said, again. ‘Even if we have to summon a demon to do it.’

Clint couldn’t tell if she was joking.

‘If we do, you can do the talking,’ he said. ‘I’d just end up leaving a massive loophole for it to strangle me with later.’

He felt her smile, then she pulled away.

‘Do you still remember how to draw that charm?’

He nodded. It was practically part of his muscle memory now, just like shooting a bow - he could do it half-dead.

‘Then use it.’

Clint shook his head.

‘What if it goes back to the house?’

‘Clint, the house is safe.’

‘You don’t know that!’

Natasha gave him a look, like she wanted to roll her eyes at him.

‘Once you put up those charms, it left the house. It stuck around outside, but it left the house.’

‘But it got back into the house.’

Natasha sighed.

‘Your kids. They said it was gone.’

‘They could be wrong. It could be hiding itself from them.’

‘But they could see it when it was outside. They knew it was there then.’

‘Yeah, because he wanted to scare them. _He_ wanted them to know.’

Another sigh, and Natasha fixed him with a sharper look.

‘Clint, this thing could kill you. Either the charms are useless, in which case it doesn’t matter what you do - or they work, in which case the house is safe. So I am going to go get a pen, and you are going to draw this thing on your bandage so I don’t have to worry about you getting beaten to death while my back is turned.’

He gave in, letting her go.

Once the door had shut he slid himself off the bed and took a few steps.

He could feel the punch he’d taken to his thigh, or maybe it had been a kick - either way it hurt.

Overall though, it was pretty mild.

Clint had expected much worse.

Maybe being dead made it harder to beat the living shit out of him. Clint was almost touched he was putting so much effort into it.

_Aww, Dad you do care._

He stumbled back to the bed and sat down, already trying to work out an excuse for why he wouldn’t be home when he’d said. Maybe he could get Steve to make up a mission, or a training exercise, so Laura wouldn’t worry too much.

One second the air smelled of hospital, the next Clint’s eyes were watering at the acrid smell of a car engine on fire. Charred flesh and whiskey.

He gagged, sliding back off the bed and heading towards the door.

There was movement out of the corner to his eyes, just before he reached for the handle.

The same cold hand from before grabbed his wrist and pulled.

His arm lit up in pain, and Clint had no choice but to follow.

A second hand grabbed him by the throat.

Harold Barton looked worse this time, like he’d been in his grave for sometime.

No eyes, they’d rotted away, and the skin was like leather, blackened in some places, in others gone completely and showing pitted, yellowish bone. Too many teeth on show, mouth ripped in a false grin. The fingers on his neck were sharp.

‘Dad…’ he tried.

Too much fear to even feel it anymore.

The fingers dug in and Clint felt them ready to pierce his skin.

‘Get a good old look, boy. You did this.’

Somehow he spoke without moving his jaw, the voice echoing all around. And Clint heard the crackle of flames behind it, glass shattering from the heat.

‘You did this.’

Clint felt his back hit the wall, and then his feet weren’t touching the floor anymore.

‘Oughta gut you. Oughta skin you goddamn alive. Your bitch mother’s not here to stop me this time, huh?’

Clint tried not to struggle, knowing the more he struggled the greater the chance of those bony fingers slicing into something he needed, like his jugular.

‘Yeah, skin you. And when you’re raw all over pour some of that fancy liquor out there over you so you know what it’s like to burn. You know what it feels like to sit there and burn, Clint?’

The hand on his wrist let go, and Clint flailed, trying to work his fingers underneath the one on his throat.

There was a tang in the air, of old blood. A smell he remembered from his dad’s shop.

When he looked down he saw the knife.

He didn’t have control anymore - not of his voice, of the whimper which came out, or of his body. There was dampness running down his leg now, dripping onto the floor.

His dad shook him, slamming his head back against the wall so hard lights flashed behind his eyelids and he bit his tongue. Blood burst into his mouth.

‘Now, it’s been a long time, but let’s see if I remember how to do this right.’

Clint felt something cold and sharp press into his belly, not quite breaking the skin but close enough.

He kicked out, landing his foot on his dad’s sternum.

Something cracked and the hand on his throat opened up, dropping him to the floor. He tried to land on his feet, but his legs were shaking so bad he ended up crumpled on the floor with piss soaking into his pants and shirt and a walking corpse with a knife still standing over him.

Those empty eye sockets were angled his way, as it slowly shook its head.

The laugh was more of a wheeze, and Clint felt goosebumps rising on his arms and the back of his neck.

‘Still a dumbass then. Thinkin you could take a pop at me. Thinkin you could get away from what’s coming to you.’

Clint looked towards the door.

He already knew that it would be locked, there was no point going for it.

‘You remember when Mr Kelley brought in that doe? Skin slid right off of her so easy it was like undressing a whore.’

_Fuck it. It’s worth a shot._

His father grabbed him before he made it to the door; arms around his waist, throwing him to the far side of the room like it was nothing.

Like he was a kid again.

‘So it’s gonna be like that then?’

Dad kicked him in the stomach. Clint curled up and retched - choking back watery vomit.

The smell of death and gasoline got stronger and Dad crouched down next to him.

‘Now,’ he said, and Clint’s eyes went to the knife in his hands. ‘If you’re good - if you stay still and take your punishment like a man - maybe I’ll slit your throat before I’m done, hmm?’

There was an almost gentle quality to his voice, something Clint wasn’t sure he’d ever heard before. No anger, and that made Clint feel cold all over. No anger, just malice.

Whenever his dad had beat him before, there’d always been rage behind it, fuelling every punch and kick. It had been quick and brutal - this was something else. Something worse.

‘Y’know, I thought about doing this a lot. While you slept. Both of you boys, maybe your momma too. Tell people she ran off somewhere, shacked up with some guy. They might not believe me - she always was pretty spineless - but no one would care enough to call me out on it.’

The flat of the knife touched the underside of his chin.

Clint looked straight ahead.

He knew how sharp Daddy kept his knives.

He looked into his father’s face and he was different again. No longer an empty-eyed skull with patchy skin and wisps of hair, but whole and solid like he’d looked three decades ago.

Clint couldn’t hold back the sob.

Something grabbed his ankle and he slid down the wall, ending up flat on his back on the floor. The same force took hold of his wrists, spread them out to either side and pinned them there.

‘Always figured you boys would end up as nothing. Saw this look in your big brother’s eye sometimes - figured he’d end badly. And you - dumb as hell and deaf as a post. What the hell were you going to do? Who the hell would want you?’

He laughed, and Clint saw nothing but blackness in his mouth, like his throat was packed tight with gravedirt, with rot.

‘Guess you proved your old man wrong there. But workin for the government, son? I oughta throttle you just for that.’

Another laugh, and Clint could smell the decay on his breath.

His father ripped the sleeve of his shirt at the seams, tearing it right up to the shoulder, and Clint tried to struggle but none of his muscles were doing what he told them.

He felt the tip of the knife touch his right wrist.

‘Dad, please…’

The knife started to move.

‘There, just as easy as I remember.’

The pain was sharp but not awful. Not yet. Clint knew it wouldn’t really start to sting until his dad started to peel the skin back.

Harold Barton finished up the cut near Clint’s armpit. There was blood, but only a little - which just meant hid dad was doing it right. No alcohol induced shaking or plain lack of skill getting in the way.

‘Now that wasn’t so hard,’ his dad said, shifting his weight and putting the tip of the knife to the other wrist. ‘Look at you, not even a whimper. Well, you went and pissed your pants already, so I guess I can’t be too proud.’

‘You were never proud of me anyway…’ Clint said, his voice coming out as a whisper. He winced as the knife dug in.

‘Shut up while I concentrate, boy. Don’t want me to slip and cut something important - not yet anyway.’

It felt like fire, searing down the underside of his arm.

If he’d been able to move his fingers he would have clenched his fists and his spine would have arched, because he _knew_ just how much this was going to hurt.

It wasn’t the first time.

It hadn’t really counted as flaying exactly, at least in Clint’s mind. He’d been pretty out of it, already badly beaten, hanging by his wrists in a cellar somewhere on the Russian border. It had been before Natasha, back when his Russian had been pretty abysmal, and he’d understood all of about two words of what the guy behind him was saying. He didn’t need to understand to know what was happening though, as he pinched his skin and started cutting. Clint heard questions - at least they were pitched like questions - from another, younger, voice and the first would respond, patiently, calmly. Teaching. Then, the knife was handed over to inexperienced hands, the blade guided into place, and Clint had felt a tide of blood run down his back when it sunk in too deep. The first voice had laughed, the boom of a palm hitting someone’s back, and the knife was handed back.

They’d patched him up afterwards, before infection had a chance to set in. There were still things they wanted to ask him after all. If Clint hadn’t already puked by that point - a punch to the stomach right at the start had seen to that - then the sight of the palm-sized flap of skin in his captor’s hand would have made him hurl all over the concrete floor.  
So Clint was seriously considering continuing to talk, even after his dad had told him to shut up, because bleeding out from a nicked artery seemed so much more preferable to what he knew was coming.

He closed his eyes.

His dad made another cut, across his torso, from armpit to armpit. The knife went deeper this time - even the steadiest of hands would have struggled with Clint damn near hyperventilating - and Clint could actually smell the blood now.

Maybe Clint could breathe himself into unconsciousness before his dad really got started. But then he’d probably just wait for Clint to wake up so he could carry on-- _or he’d just wake up without any skin_. Fuck. Those were both terrible.

‘You go ahead and knock yourself out. You think I want to have to listen to you whining and screaming while I’m trying to work?’

Bile burned up the back of his throat and maybe he could suffocate himself if he just--

A hand grabbed his neck and turned his head to the side.

‘Throw up if you need to, but this is happening. You can’t stop it.’

Clint could see the red line running down from his wrist. He coughed up a mouthful of stomach acid onto the floor.

‘I didn’t do anything to you. I was a kid, I didn’t _do_ anything,’ he said, his voice rough.

Funny how it took _this_ \- being skinned alive by his dead dad - to acknowledge the wisdom of what Laura had been telling him for years. That it wasn’t his fault. It wasn’t a matter of him being stupid, or clumsy or lazy or just plain unloveable, like he sometimes thought. There was nothing he could have done different which would have made his dad love him.

In his mind’s eyes he saw Lila, giggling under the witch’s hat with a paintbrush poised over the blank, clean wall.

_First a circle._

_Split into four._

He followed along with the lines from behind his eyelids as she painted it.

The knife was on his chest again, ready to cut from the base of his throat down to his pubic bone, and he just hoped that Nat wouldn’t tell Laura all the details, even if Laura told her she wanted to hear them.

_A bow, with an arrow nocked, pointed in each of the cardinal directions._

Lila’s hand moved steady and sure, the paint lines even and thick.

A jolt went through him. Like something heavy had been moved off him - he flexed his fingers and realised he could move.

Then he heard a snarl and the pressure was back.

He opened his eyes as his dad grabbed his jaw, pulling his head back to the centre.

The flat of the blade touched his cheek.

‘Try that and I’ll put your fucking eyes out, boy. See how you manage like--’

‘RETURN FROM WHENCE YOU CAME AT ONCE!’

Clint would recognise Thor’s voice anywhere. It wasn’t just the accent - there was a vibration to it which was like nothing else Clint had ever heard. Even totally deaf, he was sure he’d know Thor’s voice by the reverberations going through his skull.

Harold Barton drew his lips back in a sneer which split his bloodless skin.

‘BEGONE!’

This time Thor backed up words with action, with a handful of what felt like hail pelting both Clint and the floor.

The weight vanished again and this time Clint twisted, scrabbling out from under his father. He felt him grab for him, felt cold, dead flesh strike his shoulder, but then it was gone.

Clint curled up in the corner, facing the wall and gasping.

Salt had managed to get into some of the wounds and felt like matches being put out under his skin. The cuts were no longer neat, torn and bleeding from where Clint had moved.

‘Clint.’

There was something wrong with Nat’s voice, something almost wet-sounding. Like she was crying, but that couldn’t be true. Nat _didn’t_ cry.

‘So, did my fancy, sea salt do the trick or---Oh, Jesus.’

‘Clint,’ Nat said. ‘I’m sorry. I’m so--’

‘Natasha, is he alright?’

She must have turned her head, because when she hissed it was quieter and Clint had to concentrate to make out the words.

‘No. No, he’s--The bastard tried to _flay_ him, Steve. Of course he’s not alright.’

And it made him sad that Nat could look at his wounds and know, just like that, what had happened. As far as he knew, SHIELD didn’t offer _Advanced Flaying_ when they taught them how to conduct interrogations, so she’d clearly picked it up elsewhere.

‘Tony, you better call back that doctor. Where’s that blood coming from?’

‘His arms mostly. Clint, I need you to move for me so I can see.’

He didn’t mean to flinch when she touched him.

‘Clint?’

‘Barton, you must sit up so we may tend to your wounds, my friend.’

There was no holding back the yowl when he tried to move. Nat moved to help, but grasping his arm just dragged the edges of the cut further apart.

He pulled away, the pain making him panic, and curled back up again.

Somewhere near the doorway Stark swore.

‘What are you still doing standing there?’ Natasha snapped, and she was pissed. Actually pissed, not just playing. ‘And Steve, get him some clean clothes. And get Bruce!’

Her fingertips brushed the back of his head, where there were no cuts to catch on.

‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered again.

He couldn’t even tell her it wasn’t her fault, too busy shaking as the shock set in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hate all caps, but Thor just seems like an all caps kinda guy sometimes.


	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Clint gets a bit of a break here.  
> Also plot happens.

Tony and Steve were arguing - or maybe not arguing exactly.

They were stomping around and there were lots of gestures, Clint couldn’t hear what they were saying exactly, but the looks on their faces were far too miserable for arguing.

He closed his eyes again.

The inside of the hoodie was soft and warm, and Nat’s lap was comfortable.

He could have fallen asleep again without too much effort, especially with the steady pressure of Nat’s hand on the back of his neck, rubbing the skin like he was a man-shaped house cat.

He hadn’t been thrilled about the sedative Bruce had jabbed him with, but he understood why they’d needed it.

The cuts had all been cleaned and covered over with butterfly stitches, but Nat had had to hold him down before the sedative had really kicked in, because he’d tried to fight.

When he’d started coming to, he’d been in a bathroom with Nat, just her on her own, wrestling him into a pair of sweatpants.

There’d been a few moments of panic, expecting every nerve to light up with pain, for the smell of blood to choke out everything else. He hadn’t really calmed down until he’d looked down at his chest, at his arms, and seen the skin still on there.

Nat hadn’t left his side since then. Had been in almost constant physical contact, like she was worried that if she let go for even just a second his dead dad would appear and drag him away to finish the job.

That thought worried him too, but as long as she was there it was easier to ignore.

Nat was tapping his shoulder and he rolled over to look at her.

She signed for him to move his head off her lap. Once he did she got his hearing aids from the table and handed them to him.

‘Steve thinks we should get a priest,’ was the first thing he heard, from Stark.

Clint laughed. It sounded weird and tired, but it was a laugh.

‘Yeah, that was about my assessment of that idea too,’ Stark said.

‘I just think we should be dealing with someone who knows what they’re doing here,’ Steve said.

Clint shrugged, like what they were talking about didn’t matter to him, didn’t concern him.

He put his head back down on Natasha’s lap.

‘Sir, I have some further information regarding the inquiry you made earlier, about the location of Mr Barton Senior’s grave,’ JARVIS interrupted. ‘I believe I may have found it.’

Clint sat bolt upright.

‘Yeah, bring it up,’ Stark said, and a holographic map popped up in front of him.

He didn’t look at all cowed by the glare Clint was shooting his way.

‘It would appear that Mr Odinson’s hypothesis was correct. A report of vandalism was made concerning the grave of one Harold Barton, and all indications point to this being the grave of Agent Barton’s father.’

‘A fucking heads-up would have been nice,’ Clint said.

‘You were kinda busy having a breakdown there, Birdbrain. JARVIS, when was the vandalism reported?’

‘The report was made by a groundskeeper on the fifteenth of August.’

Clint swallowed.

‘That’s...kinda close to when Lila started having the nightmares.’

‘Can we get any pictures of the damage, JARVIS?’

‘There does not appear to be any on file. A drone could be dispatched to gather more information.’

‘Do that. And is Thor still in the building? Might need some more of his input on this. See how the Asgardians do their ghostbusting.’

‘Fucking typical. Someone messes with his grave, and I’m the one who gets their ass beat for it,’ Clint said, trying to ignore the way his heart was thumping.

He glanced at the map, saw the name of Harlington Cemetery. He wondered if his mother had been buried next to his father, and that thought made something twist in his chest.

He hadn’t given a damn where his parents were buried all these years, but now that he knew he wanted to see for himself.

‘You were right, Point Break. Katniss’s asshole dad got his tombstone kicked over or something, that’s why he’s pissed. Got any more Asgardian wisdom for us on how to sort this mess out?’

Clint glanced over the back of the couch and saw Thor.

‘I am not--’ Thor began, looking uncharacteristically sheepish. ‘I am not certain that I am best suited to this task. My mother knew far more of such things, but she is no longer living.’

Clint felt like a dick for his earlier assumptions - that Thor had been about to suggest bringing Loki in to help.

He hadn’t known Thor had been thinking of his mom.

Fuck, it seemed like the loss was recent too, judging from the look on Thor’s face. Clint hadn’t known, didn’t think any of them had known.

Clint had to stop himself from blurting out that they should form a club, the Dead Mom Society or something.

‘Thanks for the save earlier,’ he said, instead. ‘I appreciate it.’

It seemed like the right thing to say, and Thor looked just a little bit less miserable.

‘We couldn’t get the door open,’ Nat said. Clint glanced back over his shoulder at her, at her expression and her posture. He knew she’d been scared for him.

‘It was like what happened back at the house,’ Steve said. ‘The door wouldn’t budge, and then all of a sudden it did.’

‘This spirit is a powerful one, that much is certain. And I fear that my little knowledge will not be enough to defeat it,’ Thor said.

‘At least we know the salt still works,’ Clint said. ‘And the charm.’

Nat was looking at him, like she was waiting for him to go on.

Clint remembered the look of rage on his father’s face when he was threatening to blind him. Because he knew Clint would respond to that. Because he _needed_ Clint to stop what he was doing.

‘I, ugh this is gonna sound stupid, I _visualised_ it and he got pissed off. Seemed like it interrupted whatever evil ghost magic he had going on.’

‘Which is when JARVIS got control back over the door. Hey, Barton, think I could get a copy of that charm - I wanna see if I can find a way to code it into JARVIS, make him ghostproof.’

‘Sure. Get me a pen and some paper and I can draw it out for you.’

Stark, of course, handed him a Starkpad instead.

‘At least we know Barton’s witchcraft still works. Got any ideas on how to lay this son of a bitch to rest permanently?’

‘If someone vandalising his grave was the issue, then maybe repairing it would solve the problem?’ Steve suggested.

Clint snorted, handing the Starkpad back to its owner.

‘Yeah, can’t see my dad being that obliging. Iron’s supposed to work against ghosts,’ he said, shrugging as he remembered campfire stories told by the older carnies. Barney used to repeat them to him afterwards in a mixture of sign and mime - acting out parts of the story for his little brother. He probably changed a few details, making the stories gorier or more dramatic, but Clint didn’t mind. Lipreading by flickering firelight was hard. He remembered one story where an undead lover had had his hand burned by an iron doorhandle. Another where a ghost was unable to enter a room because of an iron horseshoe hanging over the door. One carnie told him that his people used to hammer nails into the soles of dead people’s feet to keep them from wandering - Clint had thought he was joking, but maybe there was something in it.

‘Well, I can work with iron. We could build some kind of containment--’

Clint let Tony talk. The sedative was wearing off, and when Clint closed his eyes, even just to blink, he saw his father with his teeth bared in a snarl, felt the cuts along his arms and chest like they were part of a circuit, thrumming with gentle pain. Imagined fingers gripping at the ragged edges and pulling - peeling the skin back away from the muscle.

A soft touch on the back of his neck.

‘Tony, we should stop for now. It’s been a long night.’

‘Night? It’s nine in the morning.’

‘Which is my point. A few hours rest would do everyone good,’ Natasha said. She looked to Steve for support, and there was nothing he could do but agree - who the hell was going to disagree with Natasha Romanoff when she was looking straight at you?

They agreed to reconvene at 1900 hours. By then Stark’s drone would be back with pictures and data from the gravesite and Clint would be better. Better able to focus and not--

Nat touched his arm lightly, leading him like he was blind away from the couch and out into the corridor. Up to her suite. His was tainted now - if he had to look at that closet he knew he would curl into a ball and scream.

He still curled into a ball when they got to the suite, when Nat walked him to the bed.

She stayed with him, in sight while he shuddered and babbled and tried to remember how to breathe. Memories of the Russian torturer and his protege got tangled up with memories of his father putting a knife in his hand, pushing him towards a fresh pig carcass, and showing him where to cut. The eyes were always the worst. And the noses. Daddy hit him when he hesitated. Then he threatened to shut him in the walk-in, hang him up on a hook with the rest of the animals. Clint did his best, but it still wasn’t good enough - he was too weak, too small. Hanging there, unable to do anything more than moan as they cut pieces from him.

\--

When he was calm again, Nat called Steve.

‘I need to sleep, and someone needs to watch you,’ she said.

‘Babysitting? Seriously?’

He didn’t argue too much.

When Steve arrived she kicked him out of the bedroom, and Clint ended up sat on the floor playing cards with Captain America. Beating him at cards was probably more accurate. Which wasn’t all that unusual - Cap didn’t cheat, Clint did. But Steve was hardly putting any effort in, missing obvious opportunities and bluffs.

‘You alright, Cap?’ Clint said, laying his cards down.

Steve dragged a hand down his face.

‘I should be the one asking you that. What he tried to do...I’ve seen a lot of bad things, thought I’d seen the worst already, but that...How can someone do that to their own son?’

‘And isn’t that just the million dollar question,’ Clint said, sighing. ‘If I knew that…’ He shrugged. He wasn’t sure it would make a difference - and he wasn’t sure he’d even want to understand a mindset that could see his own family as just irritations to be swatted.

‘I don’t know. I dunno if he started out mean or if he was...different at one time. It wasn’t just the drink, I know that much. He never apologised when he was sober, just kind of acted like we’d deserved whatever he’d done or said. He’d chew me out over hospital bills when he was the one who put me there in the first place. He broke Mom’s nose so many times - and then he’d sit there and tell her how nasty it looked, like it was her fault. Whenever something went wrong it was never...it was never his fault, y’know. It was always one of us, or it was the city or the government or immigrants. If that fucking portal in New York had opened up forty years earlier, I’m sure he’d find a way to blame aliens too.’

He started fiddling with one of the playing cards, bending it against his palm.

‘He told me…’ Clint started, and hesitated. He hadn’t yet told Natasha what his father had said to him, when he’d had him pinned, but it was stuck in his head now. And Steve was there and listening.

‘He told me that he’d thought about killing us; me, my brother, my mom.’

Clint realised his hands were shaking. All the threats his dad had made, while Clint had been growing up, were thrown into a chilling kind of relief. _I’ll string you up and gut you! Get outta here before I wring your neck! Mess up like that again and I’ll throw you in the grinder!_

He knew he wasn’t the only one with a fucked up childhood. Natasha had lived through a nightmare, every damn day. And Steve had grown up amongst poverty and ill health. He needed to get a handle on this shit - shake it off. Like the foster homes, like the Swordsman, like Barney. Like the memories of the people he’d killed, both on SHIELD’s orders and before.

Except they weren’t really gone, just waiting in the wings for the right moment. He’d see someone wearing a red and black track jacket, and he’d think of Singapore and a roof, aiming down at a dumb, young guy who’d made some mistakes - big mistakes - but maybe didn’t really deserve to die. But his masters said he did. So Clint pulled the trigger. And when his handler had said it was time to leave, Clint had sighed and said ‘fucking finally’ and complained about the heat and the insects and how glad he was to be going home.

Maybe he deserved it all.

‘Clint, I’m sorry.’

‘For what?’

Clint looked up. Yup, there was pity there alright. And surprise. Maybe surprised that Clint was here at all, that he wasn’t on the other side of things - a villain for Captain America to hunt down and apprehend.

‘Don’t feel sorry for me,’ Clint said, trying not to let the irritation show. ‘Just don’t.’

Steve held up his palms in surrender.

‘I know you didn’t want us to know this much - about you, about your past. I get it. But you can trust us.’

Clint just shrugged. He hadn’t had much of a choice, with Fury pushing to get the team involved. And here he was, still stuck in the horror movie, stumbling through the third act and hoping there wasn’t going to be a twist ending.

‘I do,’ he said. It was only barely a lie.

\--

Stark apparently couldn’t wait until seven to show them what his drones had found.

Clint felt like he was living through the climax of a detective novel, where the detective gathers his suspects in one room and declares his findings and finally points out the culprit. Stark suited the role pretty well, with his ego and his taste for the dramatic. In other circumstances it would have been funny.

Clint looked at the images, displayed on holographic screens in the air.

He felt his fists clench.

There was broken glass scattered around his father’s grave - from a bottle of Ezra Brooks bourbon, according to analysis by Tony’s bots.

But it was the words etched into the stone that caught Clint’s attention.

_Fuck you old man._

The gouges ran deep. It had taken time.

‘...traces of urine on the stone…’

The vandal had scraped a line through the R.I.P and scratched _rot_ in hell underneath.

‘Woah, they weren’t half-assing this. If someone did this to my grave, I’m sure I’d be pissed too,’ Stark was saying.

He could already feel the start of a headache coming on, waiting for Stark to stop talking and ask him who else hated his dad enough to literally piss on his grave.

And Clint had his answer.

‘Barney fucking Barton.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *begs for kudos and comments*


	23. Chapter 23

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I got this done in time for Halloween! Even if nothing especially spooky happens in it...  
> As a horror lover, Halloween is my favourite time of year. But I live in the UK where Halloween is generally underwhelming. *sigh*
> 
> I'm messing with the canon a bit here for Barney's backstory, any comic purists are going to be very disappointed in me. (But tbh a lot of the older heroes' backstories are kinda cheesy with more twists than the average person's small intestine...)  
> Basically it's been a life of crime for Barney since abandoning Clint. No army, no FBI, no resurrection and brainwashing, just a slow, steady slide downwards.

It’d been almost two decades since Clint had last seen his brother. And sure, it had sucked at the beginning - being alone - and it had hurt. Shit, had it hurt.

But Clint had got passed it. Had first stopped wondering, and then stopped caring, what his big brother was doing. If he was safe, alive or happy.

Clint looked up at the photographs of the gravestone with its scratched words, shards of glass twinkling in the grass.

‘Your brother?’ Steve asked. And the gentleness in his voice was just pissing Clint off now. Was there not a single trauma he was allowed to keep to himself?

Then, he thought about the foster home with the green door and the smell of damp, and the man who came into his room at night.

They weren’t getting that one. No matter what. No one was getting that one.

Except Barney, because Clint had told him and then Barney promised no one would do that to him again. He hadn’t been able to keep that promise, but Clint hadn’t blamed him for that.

The pain of it took him off guard, and he wanted to break something. To hit until his hands were a mess - more bruise than flesh.

He tried to tell himself he didn’t care. That it wasn’t his problem anymore - Barney had made his choice when he’d abandoned him half-dead and bleeding.

‘Okay. I’m sensing some definite unresolved conflicts here,’ Stark said. ‘Care to share?’

Clint shook his head, biting his lip to keep from shouting at his teammate.

Nat tapped Clint’s shoulder and made a sign - one of theirs.

_You need a minute?_

Clint thought about it. And his brain presented him with an image of Barney, as Clint had last seen him, hanging from a butcher’s hook.

_What if Dad got to him already?_

His stomach lurched.

Nat pulled his arm. ‘Come on. Up. We’re going to the gym.’

Stark started to protest, but Nat shut him up.

‘Start working on something which’ll kill this son of a bitch. We’re fine, Steve, I’ve got this.’

Clint looked up in time to see Thor giving him a look of great sympathy - the only one in the room who could understand how bad brothers could hurt you. At least Barney hadn’t tried to enslave anyone’s planet before.

Just betrayed Clint’s trust and broken several promises he could have kept.

He slumped to the floor as soon as the elevator doors closed.

‘How the fuck does this always hurt so bad?’ he said, gasping.

He wanted to go back to not giving a shit, but the images wouldn’t leave him alone. He could picture a skinned corpse hanging in a deserted shop somewhere, dripping the last few drops of blood onto the tiles.

‘Clint, breathe.’

The elevator chimed, and the door slid open to the familiar smells of rubber mats and chalk.

Clint didn’t want to get up though. The floor, the corner, the confined space all felt comfortable right now. Safe.

He didn’t know if Nat could really understand what he was feeling. If she’d considered the people she’d trained alongside as family, as her sisters. Probably not - he couldn’t see the people in charge of the Red Room wanting its operatives to retain any loyalty to one another.

Natasha got down on the floor with him.

‘JARVIS, hold this elevator. It’s occupied until further notice.’

‘Of course, Agent Romanov.’

‘Tony’s gonna be pissed if he has to take the stairs in his own damn building,’ Clint said.

‘He can deal,’ Nat said. ‘Now, do we need to track down your brother and kick his ass?’

‘If he still has an ass to kick,’ Clint said, trying to hide just how sick that made him feel.

He didn’t want him to be dead, despite everything. Even when Barney had been there, kneeling in his blood while everything hurt, and telling him he should’ve just kept his damn mouth shut.

‘He...it wasn’t on purpose,’ Clint said. ‘If he’d been trying to--to summon him then there’d be, like, candles and other shit.’

Natasha nodded, her expression flat like she neither believed nor disbelieved him. It just didn’t matter to her. All that mattered was the end result, the months of torment Clint and his family had been through. And Clint thought of Lila and Cooper and Laura and some of that anger flared in him too.

He could forgive what had happened to him, but his wife and kids deserved more.

‘He might be dead already. We should...check morgues. JARVIS? Can you check--’

‘I should inform you that sir already has me looking into the location of one Charles Bernard Barton, but more information would be most welcome.’

Hearing his brother’s full name in JARVIS’s prim, British voice made Clint want to head back upstairs and punch Stark - the asshole hadn’t wasted any time sticking his nose back into Clint’s life.

‘If we do our own search, do you have to notify Tony?’ Natasha asked. ‘I assume we can’t just ask you to stop.’

‘No, I do not have to notify Mr Stark. And no, I’m afraid you cannot Agent Romanov. However I can let him know that you and Agent Barton object to such a search?’

‘Fuck yeah I object,’ Clint said, hoping that JARVIS would use those exact words.

‘Very well.’

They waited for a few moments while JARVIS presumably informed his creator about the cease and desist coming from downstairs.

‘Captain Rogers has given his word that Mr Stark will abandon the search.’

Clint tried not to look too smug. He trusted Steve to keep his word - he was less certain of Stark.

‘I need you to check morgues as well as whatever Tony had you looking for,’ Clint said, trying to engage his work brain to take over on this shit. ‘Under either his name or as a John Doe. Can you get a photograph anywhere? Like a mugshot--’

‘Yes, there is a booking photograph from the Norfolk County police in Massachusetts. Would you like to see it?’

It wasn’t exactly a surprise. But it was still made something inside him ache.

‘From when?’ Clint asked.

‘April 2007.’

There went Clint’s hope that it had happened shortly after they’d parted ways, that Barney had gotten a taste of trouble with the cops and kept to the straight and narrow forever afterwards.

‘Okay,’ Clint said, nodding. And then he was looking at his brother’s face.

It was still recognisably his brother, despite the new scars, the split lip and bruising - Barney Barton evidently hadn’t come quietly. His nose was crooked, and Clint almost found himself reaching out as if to try and touch, even though his hands would pass right through.

‘Yeah, that’s him. Is--is that enough to go on?’

‘Yes, Agent Barton. I will let you know if I find anything.’

Clint could hardly speak enough to thank the AI.

‘Come on,’ Nat said, a hand on his upper arm. ‘Let me take your mind off it.’

\--

She did that by kicking his ass. Repeatedly, until Clint decided he’d had enough and put all his energy into returning the favour.

It felt good. Familiar. And Clint needed that right now, with ghosts both living and dead dragging him back into the past.

After almost an hour the elevator doors opened and Steve walked out. Probably to check Clint hadn’t had a breakdown, sobbing in a corner somewhere.

Sure, Clint was shaking and sweating and probably looked like a mess right now. Well, more of a mess. But it was from exertion, not feelings. Nat had knocked most of those out of him already. Now he was just sore.

‘We’re done,’ Nat said, before Steve could say anything. She picked up a towel and chucked it at Clint, and Clint started wiping at his face.

‘Uh, are we going to have to share a shower? Because that seems like something I need to get spousal approval for.’

‘As long as I’m in the room and I can see you, that should be sufficient,’ Nat said, with no trace of a joke. It wouldn’t exactly be the first time they’d seen each other naked.

And no way did Clint want to be alone, especially in a shower. Ghosts had a thing for bathrooms, according to both movies and tv, when their victims were naked and vulnerable. Of course, it was partly an excuse to show off an attractive actress’s assets, but the point still stood.

‘Now, if only we were handcuffed together, this would be just like Budapest.’

\--

Nat let him go first - there wasn’t any risk of the hot water running out here.

‘If we find him, are you going to tell him about Laura and the kids?’ Natasha asked.

‘Christ no,’ he said, wincing at the idea. He became aware of just how separate he considered these parts of his life to be, how much he didn’t want them overlapping - Barney belonged in the past, something to be forgotten. ‘I just...want to make sure he’s not dead.’

Nothing more. No looking to rekindle a relationship which had been ground into the dust and left to rot.

Nat made a noise like she didn’t believe him, but whatever happened he knew she’d have his back.

\--

Clint kept an eye on the steam, paranoid that a bank of it would billow up, obscure Natasha from view and before he could blink he’d be somewhere else.

He could smell blood. Only faintly. It might only be the cuts on his arms and chest. A few had opened up while he’d been sparring with Nat, but the water had taken what little blood there’d been and rushed it down the drain. And the cuts weren’t bleeding now.

There was a sound too, one he could barely hear over the sound of the water hitting the tiles.

It was familiar. Metallic.

Only when he was drying his hair, and the noise came again, close by his ear, did he recognise it.

The sound of blades against a butcher’s steel.

He jumped up, without thinking, and stumbled towards Nat.

He grabbed her arm, and it still felt like her. Warm, living flesh, damp from the shower she was still standing under.

She didn’t say anything, just turned off the water and stepped out, grasping his arms back.

‘It’s okay. You’re safe,’ she said.

‘He’s here,’ Clint said, and the smell of blood was stronger now. He looked at the floor of the shower, at the drain. There was a reddish tint around the edges, a trace of something underneath the cover.

He groaned and pulled Nat away, didn’t want her stepping in whatever was materialising down below, in the pipes.

‘Go away,’ he whispered. ‘Just go away.’

Natasha managed to grab a towel with Clint still hanging on.

‘It’s alright, I’m not going to let go.’

She sounded...practical. Like she was talking him through a piece of strategy, or dealing with an injury.

The holes of the drain filled up with something dark, and then it began to spill over - the crimson forming a ring before it branched out and found the grooves in the fancy slate tiles.

Natasha finally looked.

‘You’re seeing what I’m seeing, right?’ Clint said, not entirely sure which was the better option. For this to be real, or for him to be insane.

She nodded, before turning back to Clint.

‘Ignore it,’ she said.

A bubble swelled up from the drain and popped, splattering a fine blood mist against the wall.

Nat was pulling him, holding his hand, over to where her clothes were. Clint let go, struck by the ridiculousness of clinging to her like a little kid. The steam was mostly gone, and he could see her clearly now.

He heard a gurgle from the drain and he flinched.

How long would it take Stark to finish whatever invention he was working on? A couple of days maybe. And there was no telling if it would even work.

When all Clint really needed were some iron nails, and a piece big enough to shove through his father’s shrivelled dead heart. Go old-school medieval on his ghost ass.

‘Nat, I have an idea,’ he said.

Which was of course the moment when the drain cover rattled free and vomited a thick jet of old blood, splattering the ceiling and walls.


	24. Chapter 24

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short chapter again this time. I swear it felt longer as I was writing it...

‘If that is an actual person’s blood, then I better make damn sure CSI never gets a foot in the building. Jesus…’ Stark said, coming out of the bathroom.

‘Can you test it?’ Clint asked.

For once, Stark didn’t joke about him asking stupid questions.

‘Already taken samples. You’ll know as soon as I do. It might not even be blood, just looks like blood. Might not even be human.’

‘And there might be a corpse shoved into your pipes, Tony. Consider that?’

‘Okay, you’re not making any sense. Natasha, can we take Barton upstairs and get him to take a nap or something?’

Clint didn’t argue, although he did object to having both Natasha _and_ Steve escort him back upstairs to Nat’s suite. Like he was a prisoner, or a psychiatric patient - unable to care for himself and make decisions.

Once they got inside Natasha told Steve to ‘watch him’ and now it was less prisoner, more hyperactive toddler. Clint almost wanted to run off just to see if Steve would chase him. Instead he curled up on the couch, facing the windows. His feet were bare and he couldn’t stop moving his toes, nervous energy in every corner of his body.

Nat came back with a canister of salt, and tipped out a line over the threshold.

‘Did I ever tell you that you’re my favourite Avenger?’ Clint said, totally forgiving her for thirty seconds earlier.

The sky outside was dark, the glass in the windows acting like a mirror, and Clint could see almost every corner of the room reflected back. Kept expecting to see an extra person. But now there was salt and he couldn’t get in. Clint was safe.

So, why didn’t he feel safe?

‘Is he okay?’ he heard Steve say, although it might just have been his ears playing tricks on him. Stitching together words out of the fuzzed-over humming of human speech.  
He couldn’t make out Natasha’s response, but he hoped she was defending his honour from the slanderous accusation of being ‘not-okay’.

Clint _was_ okay.

He was just tired.

A hand touched his shoulder and he flinched, even as he felt the heat, as he knew it was Steve.

‘Hey, I’m gonna leave now,’ Steve said.

Clint nodded, wishing he could reach out and wipe the look of worry off of Steve’s face. Insisting he was fine would only have the opposite effect. Anything Clint did would probably have the opposite effect. So he did nothing.

It didn’t help, but at least it didn’t make things worse.

He heard the door click shut and then Nat moved between him and the window.

‘You look like you need to sleep,’ she said.

‘I need this to be over,’ Clint replied.

‘Alright,’ she said, coming and sitting on the couch next to him. ‘What’s your plan?’

‘We need to dig him up. And ram a fucking stake through his heart.’

She looked at him like he was insane - which hurt just a little bit, if he was being honest.

‘Isn’t that--?’

‘For vampires. Yeah, I know. But if you stab a regular person in the heart they’ll die too, so vampires don’t have, like, a monopoly on staking. It’s...the principle. Look, people used to have all sorts of weird ideas about the heart - that it was the seat of the soul or whatever. So, if I pin that with a stake, then he’s trapped. He can’t come after me anymore.’

She sighed, but it was a sigh of agreement.

‘The others aren’t going to be happy,’ Natasha said.

‘They’re not the ones being menaced by a vengeful ghost, so I don’t think it really matters how they feel.’ He rolled over on the couch. ‘They don’t even need to help, although it’d make it easier. With Cap and Thor, we’d have that coffin out and opened up in no time.’

‘So, are you going to be the one to tell Stark he’s wasting his time, or shall I?’

‘How about JARVIS? Hey, JARVIS, can you tell Stark that whatever high-tech ghost trap he’s working on is no longer needed? We’ve decided to go with the tried and true method of stabbing our problems with a pointy stick. Thanks.’

‘Of course, Agent Barton.’

Natasha came and sat down on the arm of the couch.

‘Is grave robbing a felony or a misdemeanour?’ Clint said. ‘It can’t be that bad, ‘cus no one gets hurt. And we’re putting him back afterwards, so it’s not even really a robbery. If anything, it’s a reverse robbery ‘cus we’re adding something—’

‘Clint.’

Nat touched his shoulder and Clint shuddered.

‘I just want it to be over, Nat,’ he said. He sounded pathetic, and he hated it.

‘Are you going to sleep?’ she asked.

He shook his head, his cheek rubbing over the leather of the couch.

‘In that case scooch up so I can sit down.’

He heard her switch the television on, and saw the colours reflected in the windows. He watched her as she got comfortable, as she picked up one of the thick coffee table books and started leafing through it. Probably something about art, or architecture. Clint could vaguely see the pictures, but not the details.

‘I have further information available on the samples presented to me earlier,’ JARVIS said. ‘They are not human blood. The exact species is still uncertain but—’

Clint raised his hands to his face and groaned in relief. It wasn’t a sob, despite Nat’s hand rubbing his shoulder.

‘I’m fine,’ he mumbled, once he was able to breathe again. If she rolled her eyes at that, then he didn’t see it.

‘I should inform you that Sir is on his way to you.’

Clint groaned again.

—

‘So, I hear you’re planning on desecrating a corpse. Don’t think I need to mention that that is kinda illegal. Also gross. Very gross.’

‘Well, after this long in the ground the smell will have pretty much gone. Y’know, if that makes you feel any better?’

‘Weirdly enough, no. That doesn’t make me feel any better.’

‘Hey, you don’t have to help.’

Stark made a face, probably at the idea of being left behind while everyone else took a trip to Iowa to dig up a thirty-year old corpse.

‘I do kinda need your help making a stake,’ Clint said. ‘I thought about just grabbing a railroad spike or something, but it might be better to have one prepared. Saves times. Oh, and some iron nails. Although, we could just buy those enroute.’

Stark was giving him a weird look.

‘A stake? As in a…’ he waved his hands vaguely, ‘solid hunk of metal. I build robots for fun, and you want me to make you a glorified stick?’

Clint grinned at him, nodding.

Stark sighed, and Clint tried not to think about how it was probably pity which stopped Tony from complaining more.

‘Any specifications. Or is ‘pointy stick’ the closest I’m gonna get?’

Clint shrugged.

‘It just needs to be iron. Sturdy enough to punch through a ribcage. Long enough to pierce right through. I’ll probably carve some stuff on it to try and keep him down. As some extra insurance.’

‘Okay, fine. Whatever. I’ll go do that. You want me to call you when I’m done. I can’t see this taking much more than thirty minutes, tops.’

Clint nodded.

As he moved he happened to glance at the window again.

His heart seemed to stutter for a moment.

He heard Natasha’s voice, questioning, but then it cut off. Probably as she looked at the window as well.

Clint got up off the couch and walked towards it.

The sensible part of his brain — the part he so often ignored — was screaming at him that this was a terrible, terrible idea.

His fingertips stretched out and touched the bloody handprint in the centre of the glass.

‘It’s on the outside…’ he said, as his palm pressed against freezing glass without encountering the damp feel of blood.

‘Well, that’s going to be a bitch to get cleaned off,’ Stark said.

Clint glanced over his shoulder and smirked, his hand still pressed to the glass. When he looked back there was another face staring back at him.

The window shattered.

Clint tipped forward. Felt the wind whipping around him like a tongue.

Then there were arms around his waist hauling him backwards.

Clint hit the carpet with a thump, his rescuer landing next to him.

‘Shit…’ Stark hissed, breathing hard, still holding onto Clint. He let go and pulled his arm out from where it had been pinned by Clint’s body. He continued to swear.

Nat came and ushered him up and away, to the bedroom.

‘You okay?’

‘Halfway to a heart-attack, but I think I’m—’

There was a stinging pain in his hand.

‘Okay, nope. My palm is full of glass.’

‘Do you need me to go get Bruce?’ Stark asked from the doorway. He looked pale, probably still recovering from almost seeing his teammate plunge to a very messy death. From this high up, Clint reckoned they’d have to scrape him off the sidewalk to have enough to put in a casket.

‘Naw, we can manage. I’ve still got one good hand.’ He held it up and wiggled his fingers. ‘Being ambidextrous rules, by the way.’

Stark gave him a long stare.

‘You almost just— Okay, nevermind. You want to move to a spare suite while I get the window fixed, just ask JARVIS. I need to go make a stake. Fuck…’ He let out a shaky breath, and Clint saw him stop and stare at the broken window, now just an open door out into nothingness, on his way out.

—

‘I think that’s it,’ Natasha said, giving his palm another look.

Clint glanced over it, but could see no more shards glittering under the bathroom light. It still stung like hell though.

Nat wrapped his hand up carefully, her touch light.

The adrenaline from his brush with death still hadn’t quite worn off and Clint felt nauseous with it. He couldn’t stop thinking about all the lights — how much brighter they’d looked and the new ones he’d seen as he’d been leaning forward. A different perspective.

And his father’s face in the glass the split second before it had shattered.

He shuddered, rubbed his forehead with his good hand.

‘D’you think he knows? ‘Bout what we’re trying to do?’

‘So what if he does? It’s not going to stop us.’

‘Wish I could have your certainty Nat. I really do.’

He sighed.

When they left the suite he didn’t even look at the windows, scared of what else he’d see there.


	25. Chapter 25

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is short as hell (also crap) and pretty much just here as a transition.  
> Next chapter will be longer. And better. And probably the penultimate one.

They ended up crashing with Steve.

Clint joked about it being a slumber party, although it felt more like a variation on The Russian Sleep Experiment.

When Clint woke up from a nightmare he ended up staring straight at Cap, sitting cross-legged on the floor of his bedroom, with a sketchbook in hand.

‘Are you...drawing me?’ Clint said, hoping he was whispering for Nat’s sake next to him.

Steve blushed and shrugged. _Yeah, sorry. I should have asked. You looked interesting_ , he signed, putting the sketchbook down.

‘Well, that’s one word I haven’t heard used to describe me. I’ll take it as a compliment. How long have I been asleep?’

He felt Nat roll over next to him, but when he looked at her eyes were still closed.

 _Two hours_ , Steve signed.

Clint flopped back down onto the pillows.

 _Nightmare?_ Steve asked.

_Yes._

Clint had a vague recollection of hiding, of thudding footsteps coming closer, of shadows passing under doors and a suffocating terror in the depth of his chest.

Steve gave him a look of understanding.

Clint thought for a moment before sitting up, sliding out from underneath the comforter and picking up his hearing aids from the bedside table.

—

‘You know we’re going to have to dig him up right?’ Clint said, sat on Steve’s couch.

Steve sighed. ‘Yes.’

‘And you’re okay with that?’

‘I don’t like bullies.’

It was probably a sign of all the emotional strain he’d been under, but Clint really wanted to hug Cap at that moment. And not a manly hug, but the burrowing, desperate hug of a kid who’d hoped, before that kind of hope had been crushed out of him, that someone like Captain America would come and—

Clint rubbed at the tears springing up in the corners of his eyes.

‘Thanks. Means a lot,’ he mumbled.

He drew his knees up to his chest and hugged them instead.

‘Least you’re not asking me to bury a body for you,’ Steve said, smiling.

‘I kinda am. We’ll need to bury him again afterwards.’

‘Yeah, guess I forgot about that bit.’

‘I’m also asking you to spend sixteen hours in a car with Stark. So there’s that too.’

Steve raised his eyebrows. ‘We’re not flying?’

‘No, a jet landing in the middle of a graveyard is gonna be kind of suspicious. We’re trying to be inconspicuous here. Getting arrested for digging up a corpse isn’t exactly gonna look too good for the team.’

‘Is it too late for me to back out?’ Steve said, but he was smirking.

‘We need you and Thor for the manual labour.’

‘And what are yours and Natasha’s roles in this enterprise?’

‘Well, I’m the one doing the staking. And Nat’s there for moral support. Also if we need anyone charmed or choked out. Stark’s just coming along ‘cus he doesn’t want to be left out.’

‘No Bruce?’

Clint shook his head. ‘Can’t really blame him for wanting to stay out of this. After what happened before…’

Steve nodded in agreement, and Clint stretched out again. He yawned. Two hours sleep really wasn’t enough. Steve was giving him a look like he wanted to tell him as much, to wrangle him back into bed himself. Clint appreciated the restraint. He got up off the couch.

‘I’m gonna go try to sleep some more,’ he said, letting Steve follow him. It reminded him a little of his first few weeks at SHIELD, when it seemed like he hadn’t been allowed to do anything unsupervised.

Steve went back to his post on the floor, to his sketchbook.

Clint knew Natasha would probably make the better art subject — she looked like she belonged in a painting, whenever she was still. But Steve probably felt he’d shirking his duties if he was focused on her. And honestly Clint felt safer with Steve watching, but he wasn’t going to tell him that.

He took his hearing aids out again and curled up in the warm spot next to Natasha. If he had any further nightmares he didn’t remember them.

—

He woke up to a touch on his arm, and to Nat’s face looking down at him.

 _Problem_ , she signed quickly, and her forehead was furrowed, the lines of her mouth tightened in an almost scowl.

‘What kind?’ he asked, once his hearing aids were in.

‘The kind that requires the Avengers to solve it.’

‘Shit.’

‘Fury’s upstairs now.’

‘Shit,’ Clint said, with more feeling.

—

Clint felt like a schoolkid before the principal, trying out some ‘dog ate my homework’ excuse. It was like the man didn’t even need to blink.

Natasha was by his side, and Clint knew that if Fury tried to force him to go Nat would leap to his defence like a fucking lioness. Maybe scratch out Fury’s remaining eye for him.

‘I thought this situation was dealt with.’

‘Well, sir, so did I until two nights ago.’

‘We have video,’ Stark said. ‘This thing is seriously trying to kill, Barton.’

‘Show me,’ Fury said.

Clint thought it would just be the clip of his dad standing around behind the couch like a creeper.

Instead he saw the interior of a room in the medical suite. Saw himself reaching for the door handle. It was freaky, watching his father appear from nothingness, at first a greasy kind of smear, like a fingerprint on film, and then solid, lashing out to grab Clint by the throat and throw him up against the wall.

Thank fuck Stark wasn’t playing it with sound, so they didn’t have to hear him begging.

Fury was watching it like it was just another mission recording, and Clint knew that Fury had probably seen some weird shit in his time but he couldn’t help but feel like maybe he deserved something. A bit of recognition that stuff like this wasn’t supposed to happen. Abusive parents weren’t supposed to come back from the dead and scare the crap out of you, to abuse you all over again.

‘Goddamnit,’ Fury muttered, ‘Stop the recording.’ He sighed, and looked at Natasha. ‘Agent Romanov, do you believe Agent Barton to be at significant risk of harm if unsupervised?’

‘Very much so,’ Natasha said, and the message was clear. The only way she was leaving Clint alone was if she was dragged, kicking and probably spitting and stabbing.

‘I need this team down in Buenos Aires, preferably before the whack job there with the alien tech levels the place. You want me to understand that neither Black Widow or Hawkeye will be available for this mission?’

‘That seems accurate,’ Clint said, hoping he wasn’t going to get fired over this. He kind of needed his job.

Fury sighed again.

‘Agent Romanov, if I arranged for...supervision for Barton, would you take part in the mission?’

Natasha thought about it for a moment, and then shook her head.

‘I thought as much,’ Fury said. ‘Barton, tell me you have a plan to get rid of this thing?’

‘Yes, sir. And...you probably don’t want to know.’

Fury gave him a long stare, maybe trying to work out what depths of illegality Clint had sunk to.

‘I’m not going to kill anyone,’ Clint clarified.

‘Just handle it.’

It was clear he didn’t particularly care how.


	26. Chapter 26

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took me so long to write. (insert various excuses here).
> 
> We're almost at the end now! There will be either one or two more chapters forming an epilogue of sorts, and then that's it.

The car stank of sage.

Clint really hoped that no one pulled them over between now and their destination, because a particularly green, or sheltered, cop might take one whiff and assume drugs. No one up to anything good had a car interior which smelled so aggressively herbal they would argue.

Nat had stopped short of painting a pentagram on the hood, but she had done everything else she could in an attempt to ghost-proof the car. The rear-view mirror was draped with medallions and crucifixes, and Clint wasn’t even sure where she’d gotten them all from. Certainly not from the New Age shop she’d dragged him to for the sage. Their back seat was also full of crystals, whatever the lady behind the counter had said worked for banishment or protection. He muffled a curse when he heard how much Nat had spent on colourful rocks, and the shop owner had given him a funny look.

And best not to mention the salt which was crammed in the trunk. If anyone thought the sage was suspicious, then the half-a-dozen bags of a white crystalline substance was a hell of a lot more so.

The stake, now clumsily engraved and with a bowstring wrapped around the grip, was in a rucksack under the passenger side seat. Clint had commandeered a mallet from Stark’s workshop too.

They were three hours in, and Nat was pissed at him.

Clint had yet to find out exactly why.

‘You want to swap over drivers soon?’ he asked.

‘I’m fine,’ she said.

Fuck, was this how Nat felt whenever he uttered that phrase?

‘You’re not fooling anyone. What’s up?’

If she hadn’t been focused on the road in front of her Clint knew she would be glaring at him.

‘If Fury had ordered you to go to Buenos Aires, you’d have done it wouldn’t you?’

‘Uh…’

He couldn’t see a right answer here. Whatever he said he was in for a lecture. There was only one way out of this.

Nat must have seen him eyeing up the door handle and pressed her foot down on the accelerator. If he tried to jump out now, he’d end up with more than a bit of road rash.

‘Would you have at least tried to argue?’ she asked.

‘Well...yeah. I’m kinda useless in the field if a ghost pops up and grabs me, aren’t I?’

Her hands tightened on the steering wheel.

_Oh shit._

He realised what this was going to be.

‘Clint, you know you’re more than just your ‘usefulness’, right?’

‘Nat, we don’t have to do this--’

She shut him up with a glance.

‘Don’t we? It’s what you told me, when you tried to bring me in, that I was more than what my handlers made me. Was that just bullshit to stop me from strangling you?’

‘Well, I _did_ want you to stop strangling me.’

‘If he asked you to jump off a cliff you’d fucking do it wouldn’t you?’

‘I’d assume there was a reason to the jumping, yes,’ Clint admitted. ‘I trust that he knows what he’s doing, at least.’

Nat was still glaring, but at the road ahead instead of him.

‘My family’s safety kinda depends on him, Nat. I can’t...If I ever…’ he said, picking up a crystal from the dashboard and rolling it around his fingers. Anything to distract him from this conversation.

She frowned and flicked her eyes over to him before looking back at the road.

‘Can we drop this?’ he asked.

‘Alright,’ Natasha said. ‘Can we talk about your brother?’

Clint groaned, slipping down in his seat.

‘How ‘bout we don’t? That seems like an option too.’

‘You know you’re going to end up with a psych eval when this is all done, right? Might as well practice what you’re going to say.’

‘None of their fucking business,’ Clint muttered, putting the crystal back on the dashboard. ‘And I’m fine. There’s nothing that needs a shrink to fix it.’

‘And do you think Fury’s going to buy that? Your dead dad tried to cut your skin off, Clint. You can’t tell me you’re seriously fine after all that.’

He flinched.

‘What, am I still supposed to be catatonic? Is there a timeline on this shit that says I’m not allowed to be okay and functioning right now? It’s not all fine, obviously, but it’ll be a hell of a lot better when I can do my fucking job without needing a babysitter with me every damn hour of the day. And if you’re worried about me breaking down on you, screwing stuff up in the middle of a mission, then you should go ahead and say something to Fury or Cap. I shouldn’t be working with you if you can’t trust me.’

‘Is that a possibility? You breaking down?’

‘I wouldn’t do that to you,’ Clint said, unable to keep the hurt out of his voice. Sure, he’d been the first one to say it, but…

He would die for Nat. Before he let her get hurt because of him.

‘What is it that you want me to say?’ Clint snapped. ‘That I’m scared? Of course I fucking am. He...it’s like the nightmares I used to have.’

The nightmares he was scolded for, laughed at for. The ones he eventually grew out of on his own. No therapy required, thank you.

The ones in which his dad came back.

He sighed and tipped his head back against the seat.

‘I...I gave up, for a second, before you guys came in and Thor started throwing the salt. I thought that was it, that I was gonna die, and I remember thinking about how I didn’t want Laura to know what really happened. The gory details. ‘Cus it was gonna fucking hurt, and I didn’t want her to have to think about that. About me...like that. Can we add that to the list? If I die on the job, and it’s fucking horrible and I stick around suffering for a while then she doesn’t need to know. Tell her it was quick, didn’t know what hit me.’

If it bothered her, listening to him talk like that, then she didn’t show it.

\--

They didn’t get pulled over but they did get odd looks when they pulled into the motel parking lot at the half-way point of their journey. Clint just hoped no passing idiot thought the rocks crowded on the dashboard were valuable and smashed a window to get at them.

Once they got into the room, Clint dug out a sharpie, got down on the floor and drew his seal on the door. By the time anyone noticed it, if they ever did, Clint and Nat would be long gone. He drew more symbols under the windowsill, and on each wall.

Hopefully they’d be safe enough to sleep.

‘Here,’ Nat said, tossing something to him.

The amulet he’d made for her.

‘Wear it tonight. I don’t want to take any chances,’ she said.

‘Just promise you won’t get possessed. All the therapy in the world wouldn’t fix that shit.’

‘I’ll do my best,’ Nat said, with a small smile.

\--

They got dinner in a nearby diner, where they were pretty much the only patrons.

Now that they’d stopped travelling, stopped moving westward, Clint felt uneasy.

Like they were giving Harold a chance to catch up.

‘We should probably stake out the cemetery for a night or two first, see the position of the grave, how visible we’ll be…’ Nat was saying.

Clint nodded along, trying to ignore the creeping feeling running up and down his spine.

When the waitress came over with their food he almost flinched.

‘You alright?’ Nat asked, once she was gone.

‘Yeah,’ Clint answered. It was pretty much automatic. ‘Uh, on edge I guess.’

She nodded, like that was fair enough. And Clint thought maybe it really was okay to be a little freaked out -- he was being pursued by a ghost who could touch him, who could hurt him.

Clint was really looking forward to jamming that stake into the bastard’s chest.

\--

The room was warm, the thermostat pretty much useless.

Nat managed to get the windows open, and the breeze cooled things down a little bit, but it still felt stuffy.

‘You got any more of that sage?’ Clint asked.

\--

They smudged the room.

‘Stay the fuck away. Stay the fuck away,’ Clint said as he worked, considering it a mantra.

When he got into bed with Nat, she left the bedside light on. He hadn’t wanted to ask, too much like admitting he was afraid of the dark.

He rolled over, covering his eyes with the edge of the pillow. He could feel Nat next to him, her breathing slow and deep. Gradually, he matched it.

\--

He woke up shivering and covered in sweat.

He sat up, looking around the room and trying to pick out any changes.

The nightmare was just a vague, shadowy thought. A feeling like drowning, being dragged down. Clint lay back, glancing at Natasha to see if he’d woken her up.

She lay still, her breathing her only movement. Clint wouldn’t put it past her to be awake, but faking.

He closed his eyes, intending to go back to sleep. But his bladder was just the wrong side of full to be comfortable.

With a suppressed sigh he rolled out of bed and headed to the bathroom.

There was no need to bother with turning on the light -- there was enough of a glare from the lamps outside, bleeding even through the closed blinds. Clint nudged the door shut behind him, hoping it was quiet.

He had a kind of deja-vu, as he glanced at the bathroom before stepping up to the toilet. He was pretty sure he’d stabbed a guy in almost this exact same bathroom -- ‘cept it was in Maryland. And he and Nat had once had to stage a suicide in a motel bathroom kinda like this -- untraceable sedatives + bathtub + electric hotplate = a job well done. Clint had really hated that mission. When he shot someone from afar he didn’t have to listen to them snivelling about their kids while he forced them to write out a suicide note at gunpoint. Clint had told the guy to shut up, to save his breath, it wasn’t going to change the outcome. It had been a relief for everyone involved when Nat had jabbed the syringe into his neck and knocked him out.

Clint finished pissing and leaned forward to flush the toilet.

Something damp touched his heels.

Clint didn’t want to turn around. There was going to be something there, something he didn’t want to see.

It could be right behind him now, reaching out. He wouldn’t even be able to feel its breath, because there would be none.

_Forgot about the fucking bathroom._

There were seals on the four walls of the main motel room, but not in here.

The dampness spread, creeping up along the outside of his foot. There was a rotten smell hanging in the air, like sewer gasses, floating up like a fog.

Clint turned around.

In the gloom he could see the bathtub. He could also see that it was full.

There were lumps in it, dark coloured scum floating on the surface. Too thick, too thick by far to be just water.

A sick curiosity drew him to take a step forward, and the sludge already on the bathroom floor was warm and gritty under foot.

A ripple moved the gunk on top, and Clint saw more clearly the shape of an arm -- lying flat on the surface like a deflated balloon, just the skin remaining. The rest had leaked out, gone to join the putrid soup forming underneath. A little more of it dribbled over the edge.

Getting out of the bathroom seemed like a really good plan right now.

Clint put an arm out, reaching for the wall to follow it back out.

A hand grabbed his wrist.

He fought against it, trying to twist out of the grip but it pulled, spinning him out and into the bedroom until he was lying on his back on the bed and looking up into Nat’s concerned face.

She mouthed the words clearly, so he got them. _What the hell, Clint?_

‘Don’t go in the bathroom,’ he said. ‘Dead body in the bathtub. Don’t think it’s real but…’

That would be a real pisser if his ghost dad had somehow managed to teleport a putrefying corpse and dumped it in Clint’s motel bathroom. He couldn’t see Fury being overly thrilled at having to bail them out of that one.

Nat moved out of his view and he sat up, finding her standing in front of the bathroom door and peering inside. She flicked the switch, and Clint was relieved not to see any corpse gunk on the floor by the toilet.

 _Nothing in there_ , Nat signed at him.

‘Thank fuck for that.’

 _You alright?_ Nat asked.

‘Yeah. Just freaked. I’m fine.’

His heart rate was already slowing down and he smirked.

Sleep? Natasha signed, glancing back towards the bathroom.

Clint had a sudden panicked thought -- what if she’d lied to him? What if there really was some poor son of a bitch melted into their bathtub and she was waiting for him to fall asleep so she could get rid of them.

He shrugged, shuffling back up over the bed to the point where he could see the bathroom door without having to sit up.

Nat waved her hand to the left of his field of view, until she caught his attention.

 _It’s clear_ , she signed, using one of their signs.

Clint apologised, sure she’d picked up on the moment of paranoia.

She went and shut the bathroom door, and then climbed back onto the bed.

 _Safe_ , she repeated. And this time Clint believed her.

\--

Clint washed at the bathroom sink the next morning.

Even Stark couldn’t have paid him enough to stand in that bathtub and take a shower after what he’d seen floating in it.

It wasn’t much of a consolation that it wasn’t really real -- just an image conjured up to gross him out.

When Nat suggested breakfast, he opted to stick to coffee. And to resolutely avoid thinking about the thing in the bathtub.

It mostly worked.

\--

The rain started up barely thirty minutes after they got on the road. Everything other than a short stretch of road in front of them was swallowed up by grey sheets of rain. The sound was irritating to the point that Clint just had to take his hearing aids out. Even then he could still detect a fuzzy, staticky noise in the background, and he could definitely still feel the vibrations as raindrops struck the car.

The upside was that Nat couldn’t goad him into talking about how he felt about everything -- about his brother, her dad, and what they were going to do.

Clint wasn’t even all that sure how he felt. He’d be lying if he said he wasn’t kinda looking forward to sticking that spike through his father’s chest -- it’d be just like one of his childhood fantasies, the ones he’d barely dared to have, come to life.

Of course, he doubted it was going to be straightforward. His dad wasn’t just going to let them walk on up and pry him out of his coffin.

He saw Nat’s hand adjusting something on the dashboard. The heat. Clint had hardly noticed the goosebumps popping up on his arms, or how he was hugging himself, trying to conserve body heat. The warm air was a welcome addition, even if it did make the old car smell kinda like feet, with a sagey undertone which was still there.

\--

They decided to swap drivers after grabbing lunch at a diner.

It was still raining. They’d both gotten soaked to the skin during the dash across the parking lot.

 _They’re all talking about the rain_ , Nat signed after the waitress had taken their orders.

Another staff member was by the door mopping up the run-off from patrons coming in. There was a young couple a few tables away who were clearly hoping for the rain to stop, or at least lighten a little, before they tried to get back to their vehicle.

Clint started looking at his phone, at local weather forecasts. Most promised sunshine and had yet to be updated to show the wet reality outside.

 _Weird_ , Clint signed, unwilling to describe the uneasiness which was setting in. The rainstorm had followed them across one state line already, and showed no sign of going away.  
The young couple who’d been waiting finally had to brave it. Clint watched as the guy held his coat up over his and the girl’s heads as they ran. He saw them laughing, even as the girl began to shiver, as they struggled to get the car unlocked.

He tried to imagine his parents in a similar situation -- young, just out to enjoy each other’s company, laughing even as they got soaked to the skin.

He couldn’t.

He tried to imagine his mom as a young woman, before the weariness and resignation had had a chance to go bone-deep. He wondered if maybe she’d wanted something else -- maybe she’d wanted to work. Be a nurse, or a teacher, or just some small time office job. Maybe travel, have a chance to go beyond Iowa and see the rest of the country. To know there was something else, something besides the dead marriage and the bastard she’d been shackled to.

He wondered sometimes if she knew he was gonna kill her one day. Maybe just in the back of her mind the thought would be there -- it could have happened anytime. A single blow, badly placed. Or maybe one time he just wouldn’t stop hitting when she fell to the ground. Would keep going even after she passed out. Maybe he’d strike at her and forget he was holding something in his hand -- a cleaver, a wrench, anything. Or he’d just get drunk and smash their truck into a tree.

The young couple’s car pulled out of the parking lot and disappeared from sight.

A hand brushed his arm and he flinched so bad he hit his elbow on the back of the seat.

Nat held up her hands in apology.

 _Sorry_ , Clint signed back.

 _Not hungry?_ Nat signed, gesturing to his mostly untouched plate of food.

Clint shrugged. Nat’s plate wasn’t much better, probably for the same reasons.

There didn’t seem much point in waiting to see if the rain would stop.

\--

_I think my dead dad is controlling the fucking weather._

Nat just looked at him, presumably as she tried to work out what the fuck he’s just said. Because it sounded stupid, but honestly it was the only explanation Clint could come up with.

They were in Iowa now and it was still raining. Great sheets of it whipping at the car like it was trying to push it off the road.

It was either that, or aliens.

They were stuck in a bottleneck around an accident -- the third that Clint had spotted. He couldn’t see much of what had happened, it was too far ahead and obscured by the rain, but it had to be big if they still weren’t moving.

He could see lights flashing from the ambulances. At least three of them. Clint really hoped no one was dead.

He watched Nat’s lips as she spoke. ‘I think you might be right.’

\--

It was long dark by the time they made it into Waverly. The rain hadn’t stopped. If anything, it had gotten worse.

They headed up to the graveyard first, and got soaked again lugging the bags of salt up to the fence and hiding them in the undergrowth on the other side. The shovels went over the fence with the stashed salt. Finding them again later that night was going to be fun, but the plan was to leave the car at the hotel, where it wouldn’t be noticed, and walk to the cemetery. They’d look pretty suspicious if they did it carrying shovels.

\--

The hotelier handed them towels as they walked in. She shrugged and said something -- maybe an apology about the weather -- but Clint didn’t pay attention. Nat could deal with this stuff.

He rubbed his hair and carefully dried both sides of his face until his ears were dry enough to put his hearing aids back in.

It took him a few minutes to adjust. He heard the rain again before he managed to start focusing in on the conversation happening at the front desk.

‘...blue skies! Now look at it. Hope you folks weren’t planning any sightseeing out here.’

‘No, no. We’re just in town visiting relatives. My husband’s family’s from ‘round here.’

He’d never get over how easily Nat could change personas. Just drop any suggestion of dangerousness like she was stripping off a glove.

Clint could play dumb, but that was about it. Nat had a whole wardrobe of people to pick from.

He waved when the hotel owner looked his way. Hopefully he didn’t look like a guy about to go dig up a corpse.

‘Well, I’ll let you dry off in your room. 211. It’s just up the stairs, turn left down the corridor and it’s the first door on your right.’

‘Thank you,’ Nat said, smiling. ‘Oh, we might head over to my in-law’s house later tonight. What time do you lock the front door?’

‘There’s someone on the desk until 3.30am.’

‘Perfect, thank you.’

\--

The rain complicated things.

Clint did not especially want to drown in a muddy grave, but the longer they waited the more waterlogged the ground would get.

And it wasn’t going to stop either.

\--

There was no talking as they walked towards the graveyard -- the rain kinda made that impossible.

Clint had his hood up, trying to protect his ears. Supposedly his aids were waterproof, but that didn’t mean he wanted to test that fact right now. A previous set had survived him being dumped in the Volga, although they’d been busted permanently on the very next mission so he couldn’t really be sure about any long-term damage.

The last thing he wanted was to be down in that grave without his ears. He didn’t even want to think about it in case he jinxed himself.

The front gates were locked, but they already had a spot picked out where they could scale the fence without being seen.

Once in the cemetery Nat pulled out a small flashlight and aimed it at their feet.

They moved quickly, cutting through the middle of the graveyard on their way to retrieve the salt and shovels. Clint already had the stake in his coat pocket. He kept touching it every few minutes just to check it was still there. That it hadn’t been spirited away somehow.

At one point, all the hair along his arms and the back of his neck stood up. He looked around, but was unable to pick out his father’s tombstone among the dozens he could see. They changed direction then, heading towards the fence where they had left the stuff.

It was all still there. The plastic of the salt bags intact. Clint relaxed a little more at the sight, although he was still uneasy. It was hard not to be. They were standing in a graveyard at night, in the middle of a rainstorm. It was like something out of a horror movie.

Nat took the shovels, and Clint ended up with three of the four bags of salt. Water trickled down the back of his neck as he lifted the bag up onto his shoulder. It would be just Clint’s luck to make it home from this in one piece, and then immediately come down with a fever. In fact, Clint had pretty much resigned himself to it. He was even looking forward to it -- to having an excuse to rest after everything.

\--

The words were still scarred onto the stone -- so deep no amount of sanding or buffing would get rid of them.

Clint found himself wondering what Barney had used -- a knife blade would surely have grown blunt long before he’d finished. Maybe a chisel of some kind.

_Good job, big brother._

‘Alright, let’s get this shit started.’

\--

It wasn’t the first time they’d dug a grave together.

Of course, the rain made everything harder -- they were already wading ankle-deep in mud and they’d hardly even started -- but Clint and Nat had a system, a rhythm.

They had to make sure the dirt they dug up was far enough away from the side of the hole -- Clint could think of no worse way to die than suffocating in his dad’s grave.

_Goddamnit don’t think about it!_

They moved fast, and Clint was starting to think they should have brought a bucket to bail out the excess water. At this rate, he’d have to work out where to put the stake by touch and that thought was putting a queasy feeling in his gut.

They continued to dig.

It was dark in the bottom of the hole. And that really went without saying, because it was _night_ and dark was kinda the whole point.

But up topside there was the distant light from the graveyard gate, from street lamps and from buildings across the street. Down here there was none of that, just the misshapen circle of light from the flashlight Nat held in her teeth.

Several times Clint thought he saw something -- a hand, or part of a face in the dirt or the muddy waters, but when he’d focus it would be gone.

Nat was the one who heard the shovels hitting the wood of the coffin top, holding up a hand to tell Clint to stop. He looked down, at the water now up almost to his knees.

And it would only continue to get higher.

Clint stumbled to get out of the way, helping to try and clear the remaining mud from the coffin lid.

Open the lid, hammer the stake in, climb out, salt the bastard into oblivion and rebury him. Get warm. Sleep.

Nothing to it.

Nat tried to find the edge of the lid with the shovel, and Clint heard it when the wood splintered.

The water level dropped as it seeped into the coffin, as Clint helped Nat lever up the lid and push it aside.

Not enough though.

He was still going to have to stick his hands into that opaque, muddy water, and find his dad’s ribcage by hand.

_Fucking awesome._

He found the stake and lifted it out of his pocket, turning it over in his hand, before handing it to Nat. The hammer too. She didn’t need him to tell her to be careful, because if she dropped them Clint had a feeling they wouldn’t get them back.

Water trickled down from overhead.

Speed was important now, but Clint still found himself frozen looking down into the muddy water.

Anything could be waiting under there.

His stupid brain of course picked this moment to remind him of a scene from _The Thing_ \-- a doctor yelling ‘Clear!’, plunging hands gripping paddles down towards a chest which opened up and swallowed them.

‘Clint?’

‘Yeah, yeah. I’m fine.’

His hands hovered over the surface of the murky water.

 _Bandaid_ time, he thought, sinking his hands into the water.

\--

It probably only took him a few minutes, if that, to find the right spot. Of course, it didn’t feel like minutes as his fingers moved through the water, finding fabric, buttons, bone. He could feel what might be skin, shrivelled by the years, slimy and slippery with the addition of the rainwater.

He kept telling himself not to think about it, to slip into that mission-mindset where he could put up with anything, no matter how crazy.

‘Got it,’ he said, holding out his hand for the stake.

He kept expecting to feel movement, for something to stop him.

A clump of mud hit him on the back of the neck, and he knew it wouldn’t be long until the walls of the grave collapsed in. There wasn’t time for second guessing.

He moved the tip of the stake until he felt the gap between ribs.

Nat handed him the hammer.

Clint was actually grateful for the water, and for the rain, because it all but blocked out the damp crunch of ribs collapsing in. If the stake made a noise when it moved through the withered cluster of organs, then Clint didn’t hear it. He only felt when the stake hit the coffin on the other side.

He kept at it, until the top of the stake had disappeared beneath the waterline, until he was sure the other end was buried deep in the earth beneath.

‘Try and get out of that one you old son of a bitch,’ Clint muttered.

The water was still rising, coming up for waist level. Clint looked at the sides of the grave, at the mud which looked fit to crumble.

He knew Nat was thinking the same thing.

If they weren’t careful how they climbed out, they’d pull all that earth down on them, bury them as well.

They picked a spot where the mud seemed most stable. Clint locked his hands together, giving Nat a step up, and shut his eyes against the dirt and water which fell as she tried to climb out.

It took her a few minutes before her weight was off his hands, and she rolled herself over the lip of the grave and out of sight.

She reappeared a second later.

Clint looked at the dirt in front of him then he glanced behind him at the coffin, or more specifically at the water over the coffin.

His feet were numb, cold and damp inside his boots. It didn’t even feel like he had toes anymore, but still he tried to find a foothold.

Once he was off the ground he could rely on his arms to do the rest. He couldn’t risk Nat trying to haul him up and falling back in herself.

One foot nudged the wood of the coffin. It probably wouldn’t support his weight, would probably crumble as soon as he stepped up onto it -- but Clint didn’t see any better options. It would give him the step-up he needed.

He lifted his foot up and felt the edge of the coffin. In one quick movement he had both feet up and was balancing on the lip of the coffin. He could feel the wood shaking, knew it wouldn’t support him for long.

He leaned forward, sank his hands into the mud, and shoved the toe of one boot into the wall of the grave.

So far, so good.

Until he went to move his other leg.

It wouldn’t budge.

No matter how many times he repeated to himself _it’s just a root or something_ , it didn’t change the fact that the nearest tree was forty feet away.

‘Nat…’

Not panicking was key here.

‘My foot’s ca--’

The side of the coffin gave way and Clint fell back, the muddy water closing over his head.

\--

Not panicking was a lot harder under a few feet of opaque water, with a dead man’s hand wrapped up in the fabric of his jacket.

Clint thrashed, kicking and clawing and trying to break the bones of the arm that held him but his hands kept slipping, the cold deep in his fingers to the point where they wouldn’t work right.

He managed to get his head up, above the surface long enough to take a mouthful of air, but then he was being pulled back down.

The stake he’d hammered into his father’s chest scraped against his back, and another bony arm came up to wrap across his shoulders. The one holding his jacket let go and snaked around his chest.

It was almost like a hug -- and Clint found that funny. So hilarious he almost ended up laughing and inhaling a lungful of water.

Because his dad didn’t hug -- he hit and he smacked and he lashed out whatever way he could. Clint couldn’t remember a single touch from him that hadn’t been intended to hurt.

He meant to drown him.

Every kick and twisting movement only brought him closer, using up the oxygen in his blood.

But Clint couldn’t stop fighting, even when it was useless.

He didn’t feel the salt hitting the water above, as Nat tore open one of the bags and tipped its contents into the water, but he felt the arms where held him loosen. Enough for him to struggle free, to break the surface of the water and cough and gasp.

‘Clint!’

He didn’t stop to thank her, not yet, clawing his way up the side of the grave, mindful of anything reaching out and snatching at his legs.

Nat grabbed the back of his jacket and helped to haul him out.

They collapsed practically on top of eachother, a few feet away.

‘Let’s finish this asshole already,’ Nat said, sitting up and grabbing another bag of salt.

Clint stayed where he was a few moments more, content just to be breathing fresh air, before he struggled back over to the side of the grave.

Without a word he grabbed a bag and tore through the plastic covering, tipping it out into the churning water.

He hoped it fucking stung.

\--

The lady at the front desk about had a stroke when they stumbled in.

‘We had car trouble,’ Natasha said, breezing on by -- or as close as she could get while hauling Clint’s limping bulk around. ‘We’ll cover the cleaning bill,’ she added, when the woman’s jaw remained open.

Clint didn’t turn his head to look at the trail of mud they’d left in their wake. The rain had stopped pretty much as soon as they’d left the graveyard, so they hadn’t even had the opportunity to wash off just a little of the dirt. Clint was pretty much resigned to all the antibiotics he’d be taking -- his back was cut up from the struggle in the grave, not to mention his hands, and his ankle was throbbing like a son of a bitch.

Despite all of that he was happy. Could have broken into song if he hadn’t been so exhausted.

\--

Washing the mud off was like taking off a second skin, and the hot water meant he finally had full feeling back in his fingers. Which was kinda a mixed blessing, because now he could feel all the individual cuts and scrapes, the cracked nails.

It took almost an hour for them to get all traces of graveyard off of their bodies. Nat checked over the wounds on his back before he got dressed, making sure all the visible dirt was gone.

‘They’re not deep. Could probably use stitches though,’ she said.

‘Reckon the rest of the team are done in Buenos Aires yet? We could--’

Clint stopped talking as he looked at his phone. He had a voice mail. From Jarvis.

The AI had found Barney.


End file.
